Possible Idolaters in a Black Throat
In all my vast concerns
I never once considered this:
By painting my incisors
I would lose the promised kiss
Which, in my fevered nightmare
Which caused me countless turns
Daunted early-risers
In all my earthly trials
I never once remembered Jane
Who used to draw the water
And pour it down the drain
Which, in my favourite daydream
The fruit of sundry phials
Purchased from the porter,
In all my time in jail
I never once betrayed my fist
Or lost my strong conviction
As I struggled to resist
That my strange hallucination
Neither fresh nor stale
Would bring my dereliction
In all my darkest hours
I never once resigned my post
Despite a failed delivery
To a most ungracious ghost
Of four-and-twenty blackouts
And sundry whisky sours
That left me pale and shivery
In all my fondest hopes
I never once believed I'd win
But, lo! the bleak Andromeda
Has beckoned nightfall in
Now all across the welkin
The stars are tied with ropes
To tap the night's barometer
In all, such blind despair
I never once forsook before
I nestled here; and, if I might
Have closed the mind's front door
Against the winds of folly
And the terrors of the chair
Too steep for human sight
In all, my life now seems
A never-ending Hymn of Joy
As I sit here, untended
Still neither man nor boy
Surrounded by the noises
And the echoes of such dreams
As Sibyl had portended
| Contributors: | Roland, P, TG, Linda. |
| Poem finished: | 31st October 1997. |