Poetry

Thursday, 18 August 2022

Once upon a time in Shepton Mallet

 Swooning in the afternoon

Following flies with my eyes

Hearing, clearing

The Foreign words

Hollow


She is standing there 

Someone fragile

Yet strong

Every woman

Everywhere a vase

And I am the eye of Babylon


Piercing in the quickness of a care

Piercing in the shallows of the stream

Woken broken with a care, from a shallow dream


Lapping in the inch high water of life

It flows just about, just married wife

Just divorced, just about on speaking terms

Just


And cutting the kite string it floats up

Into the stratosphere and I no longer

Think I know my own face

I have forgotten it

And so will you one day


Cinderella works in the barbers

Sweeping up the hair

The Verger mutters to himself

As he spreads the butter knife

The collared dove is cooing

The Polish sit on gravestones

Their Labradors open doors

To the afterlife


The Queen of Sheba is up there

She used to be a harlot you know

The night comes in

Her clothes come off

And the world moves on with its show


Cleopatra works in Ladbrokes the gamblers

She's taking bets on the horses

Raising the stakes on a possible invasion

While Rapunzel is in the hairdressers

She's arguing with Cinderella

Buggs Bunny walks in looking for something funny

But they use the stick and not the carrot on him


The Dardanelles are the good fellas

Every town needs its gangsters

Here they are supplying drugs to minors

Here's Peter Pan stoned out of his mind

On the park bench, With Tinkerbelle

Sprawled in a Corner

Wendy saw them, then ran to the barbers

To tell them the Church was on fire


They rang hell's bells, the fire brigade

And came hurtling down the street on their engines

Their ladders were reaching up to the tower

Where Rapunzel was waiting


Prince Charming he came shouting

Ranting while running down stairs

What's all this I hear about farmers

And what's that I heard about bears?


Well the three bears have moved 

Into the neighbourhood

And now Goldilocks goes to school in the wood

She tried to stay white, for they said they don't bite

But she ended up bitten quite good


Now Red Riding Hood is a mummy

And she works in the seven eleven

She's got to make sales targets this month

Or her little dwarves will have empty tummies


Oh yes she's relying on benefits

I mean her husband is an ex miner,

He mined all the coal, now it's snow white as his soul

And Snow White's has turned rather black


You see the wolf with baleful eyes

Something's eating him up deep inside

As he marauds down the street

Looking for meat, or just looking

For the life he was owed


Don't worry young man,

Oh young rabbit

For you're living in Shepton Mallet

It was tinsel town once

But now the time is upon us

And the clocks face has turned away from the sun


Even the sun dials are broken

And astronomy is all out of whack

I'd like a time machine, visit a time so green

When fairy tales didn't end up so black


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