Grimbeau

Red berry cider and barbiturates
take me through the hours of darkness
shelling peas by moonlight,
harvested by these the very
hands that plucked them from the eiderdown yesterday
When I was kneehigh to a grasshopper.
After the triumph dispersed
tasked by the vocal authorities
with counting the torsos
of mutilated amazons

strewn across the coffee table
and stacking up
alphabetically by impure chance
ready for removal and despatch
to the far flung corners
of this expansive empire of dirt
‘Save them’
screaming from the chimpden.
Perry Coma did not show
Later we got the whisper
he’d scarpered with the tweed
to live the life of Reilly, Ace of Spies
in Bongo-Bongo Land
where mighty whities rule the roost
hidden in a hodful of porridge
under a suede pergola

Hushed up like a rat after
pissing on fresh linen
do-it yourself dentists
risk a sharp intake of plague spore air
instead of the cold spring waters
All in order to live
for fifteen days and to
regret it for an eternity
spent knitting in a holding pattern
over a smouldering pile
of troubled rubble