We Three Super Kings

 We three super kings

 

We three kings dispersed

Over the kingdom’s surface

Scratching our heads as we

Gaze up at the same ceiling

Our sheets damp with dew

Undulating as molluscs perform

Before our eyes

We behold our return

Back or was it forward?

Ours is not to reason why

There’s a cobweb on the cornice

Cracked plaster edging

Is this our limit? We chime

Your hand my hand his hand

Feeling for some cool sheet

I was a terrible heir

And I regret those statements

I posited that you banked upon

But now I’m left counting the stars

One is so very difficult to keep

Count of: don’t take your eyes off it

You say looking straight ahead

I love the smell and feel of sand

Beneath the camels’ hooves

I passed an old friend

The other day

Why isn’t he here?

He’s busy keeping his hand in

You say smiling

Like a plaster matelot

Will we make it in time

For midnight’s mass I wonder?

But I know the thought

Is just grist

As the mill thunders on

And in the distance the sun

Is rising over the bedframe

Your pyjama jacketed friend

Laughs as we round the bend

We could see coming all along

And a herald arrives

Delivering our final reminder

A parchment scroll

And we pay our respects.

 Outcrop

 

This soon to be the heir to

The skin stretched camping chair

The wanderer above the lakes

Cuts a distinctive figure

Upon a dry-stone wall

Plastic adventurer’s camera in hand

Arise sir win-a-lot

Reborn without cuticles

Magnificent in discreet isolation

Child man elect

Ribbing the yellow gardens

Of dawn’s early sitting

Soot settling on your cheeks

You will wipe that smile

Off the escarpment’s

Skittering fossil face

Skimming one for luck

Out of the corner of your

Daddy’s eye

For you are the daddy 

Now and forever

There’s no going back

No looking down

The view churns over leaf

Bite sized reminders

On the back of your hand

You feel held

Back and back we go

Are we there yet?

Horse and Rider

By Elizabeth Frink

Onthe newly cobbled corner

Waiting to cross over

You are heading back to Victoria

Via green Park

Where’s your art work

Asked the social distancing monitor?

Or was it supervisor?

It’s in my pocket.

I’m pleased to tell you

Dangling a mask 

Like a question mark

Leave it over there

And one of our art handlers

Will deal with it

You’re wearing your Paul Smith pants

So on the way back 

You stop to look at his shop

Same small same old

Cork street meanwhile

Was pretending

To be getting ready

For spring in the winter

Even the beggars wear masks

Surely this is a good sign

This contemplative realm

Except that the inward looks

Betray a different story

You’ve never had it so good

Just admit it you love it

And the trains are so quiet

You feel the sap rising

As the bile slips down

Wait please

This was not how I meant to become enlightened

Where are the fields of wheat?

A man walking down Picadilly

Doth not a Summer Show make

But at least Grayson’s Art club

Will be back next year

Next year so Lockdowners

Can breathe a sigh of relief.