The Teacher spoke in hazardous climes
Insured against healthy and safe times
No camping in monkey vine-rope grids
First the trees must all be rid.
The leaves were stained harassing plagues into the rain
Grains appeared large under microscope
Managers groped sexcreteries and took a poke
Who ran away writhing in security nets
Shat themselves in their own nests,
Rot the town and country planners! they said
Towpaths parried laughs
Blow-drip dried countryside
Dignity under fathoms of bowels
Cutlered-up office brisk subside
Tranq-troops barmy in nukes
Phone-trunk bellowed in soup
Sterilised hunkies on postage-stamp bunk
Chemical convention defrocking fallaciousness
Grumble-pudding regurgit C.I.A.
Run for your life! Run for cover!
Scratch craniums womaniser immune to the poke
Ajax crowned in watery isle
Booming bloom crooner! Expectorant aphid!
It seemed no sin to believe in magic
Or to be living a myth
A symbiosis between man and nature
All barriers dropped, no inside, no outside
Gathered around the fire, flames
Licking into the inky blackness and shades
And livid colours splashed our faces
We felt warmth, reaching out our hands
Smile spread from face to face, person to person
A smile born from the wisdom
That fire shuts out the night
In the cities and towns, dull shadows walk the streets
A ghoulish army to confront and meet
A legion of fears to test my verve
Is wraithlike existence what they really deserve?
In the country, autumn displays her dapperness
Wind howls, rain strafes,
The colours glow in a hollow echo
Light diffuse, night close
Journeys bind and tighten in knots
Sea Cold, Sky Bland,
Yet there is movement here between sea and land.
The Christian and the Pagan are at opposite ends of the earth
Yet they meet and mingle, on this our sacred turf.
They say ignorance is bliss; then am I to surmise
That the blind are happier than those left behind?
Ignorance of the law is no defence
Yet panderers and flatterers set the pretence
© Christopher J Hudson (2000)
