Well past the middle of my span
In health, with money in the bank
I count myself a fortunate man
When out of nowhere comes derangement
We are locked inside our cages
To await the final judgement
1
The old times are dead, dead as those
Who wrote in living verse
Of the giants who bore us
I sigh at the thought, think of friends-
This sea-edge seclusion must end-
I could die here, impenitent
Charm will not keep us alive-
Admiring the sun on the waves
That roll over mariners’ graves-
Paddling, with my trousers rolled
Thinking myself a daring man and bold
When my toes go cold
I am reading the first-war poets-
Crippled in their trenches, they wrote
In words their Greek and Latin taught
Of the doomed and wonderful youth
Whose blood in its shame spoiled the earth
Whose meters and rhymes spoiled the truth
Efficient at counting the dead
We have something of which to be proud
(Made in China it says on the shrouds)
Antigone would be a better
Role model, as if it still mattered
To wash the freshly slaughtered
Cut the cloth for the cerements
Put out the funeral baked meats
Tear out your hair, rend your garments
How many of us want this role?
We read the numbers in the daily scroll
Plant the fear of God into our soul
But we will not clean the dead
The old customs are gone, as dead
As us who survive by being afraid
2
Why have they silenced the church bells?
What means this impious betrayal-
Refusal to sound our death knells?
I do not know, they do not ring
Nor say I owe you five farthings
The bells of hell go ting-a-ling
Why have they closed the concert halls
The cinemas and theatre stalls?
Access to the writing on the wall?
Who are we who will not bury the dead?
We cannot bury the dead.
We cannot bury the dead.
Sing then, Muse, to us who are deaf.
But how can I ask you to sing to the deaf?
We have no inner voice, no self.
We are given the past, the present, future
But we have destroyed our culture
We no longer have a future
I have been warned about the past
That shoreless ocean, empty waste
As dangerous as nothingness
The defining moment of one’s life
One realises all too late
Defined it. All you can do is laugh
3
Life is not worth living in this way
Decadence both serious and fey
Cocktails at six, Netflix, sick pay
In the midst of this suicide-
So scared of death we’d rather die
And- oh!- so very very tired
We are too paralysed with dread
To choose with care the right method.
We simply wait, we thoroughbreds
The doctor comes and cannot find a vein
He has bad news he can’t contain-
“Your illness is not terminal”
This work will be unfinished
Should we not have let the past be buried?
Why did they preserve those monuments
Those temples- the Greeks, the Romans?
What is this suffering we try to heal
(With amulets, daubings of woad
Pharmaceuticals and spells)
They disgust me more than the vandals who piss on the graves
These office-holders with faces shiny and shaved
And their publicly-washed hands
Dante told us where to put such slaves
Men like these, buried to their lips in shit
Undead, unrewarded, unsaved
Why have the clocks stopped?
Has time itself become de trop?
No; this was not planned; they simply stopped.
I’d say Farewell, Farewell, sweet friends
But not in sour words like these
Can I leave you in oblivion
The war to end all wars
So said our forebears
Farewell dead friends, safe now on the other shore
freeversefolkestone 