River Severn

River Severn, River Severn
Severed heaven
At the pearly gates
Your locks the Brunette, Brunel Curls
That flow and Furl
Along your banks

River Severn on a journey
Through the mists of time
Turn back the clock
At the Bristol docks
So the river creatures chime

River Severn, severed from heaven
Flowing out of Eden
Through the bearded bushes grow
Narrow, widen, even
All the gulls that fish you
All the cormorant crews
Crows in rows that haunt your flanks
Swans that pose upon your banks
Carry the roots of inner earth
The heart of caves
To the river mouth of course
Far from ignoble birth
In the hilltop source

River Severn, severed heaven
From a Seventh Eden
Bows down from the midland crown
Between Wales and England

From source the mundane force
From little becomes a lot
Into the trees of noble seas
The Blood clot
Breaks through waves of life
Muddy foot prints in clay
Sinking skin of arterial
Reeds poke up as aerial
Let little birds fish
Has bigger fish to fry
The river in quiver
From the rain darts of the sky
Down the ponds and lakes
That stand beside in half hidden tree stakes
That let the flood-lines shake
The field levees break
And out in all the miserable din
As Winter breaks the icy grin
And spread its cold shiver across the skin
Of river-land

There it is beneath the skin din
Rustling its shoulders
Rolling blood over mud over blood
Over boulders
Slipping its slight artery out to sea
Bleeding its inheritance of land
Bleeding its rain heart
Its cloud song
Sky banks let its savings out
Spending all its cash
On one last ditch attempt
To splash, flash or smash our contempt
For law for the claw that
tries to rake back the sea

It tries to take back the land
In its never ending battle ground
Playing its hand
In Neptune's tidal sand
In the Kraken's fighting stand
With its seven heads of heaven spewing
Severn mouths of seven wells
From the Seven fallen Angels
Conquering seven seasons of hell

each one feeding, snatching at the next
Until the river Severn has severed and broken all their necks
And the river dragon is finally dead