Scholar:
Mensa, begin a song from the future.
The estuary rises to our dangling feet
Since we have sat together bold with cider
On this high pier, like blackbirds on a totem
Three tiers above a pregnant bear with frogs
Emerging from her ears, a human form
And not a salmon on extended tongue.
Mensa:
What the fuck? The moon is on her back.
You’re pissed, you twat, pissed as a sparky newt.
Scholar:
The rain is in her nest above the Severn,
Obscuring half a shape that’s leaning out
To listen for our song, so you’ll begin.
Mensa:
We lived in Lydney
As if it was
Scholar:
By background sea
In Titian’s Bacchus
And Ariadne
A shore of Naxos
Mensa:
Lipped by the Severn
Our blue Forest
Of Dean a haven
Scholar:
Alfonso d’Este
Mensa:
Could not have governed
Scholar:
Our days focussed
On getting out
Mensa:
Of it, reclined
In hidden spots
Where we could find
Scholar:
The unkempt god
Mensa:
In Kwik Save wine.
Scholar:
It’s time we went, this asymptotic tide
Swirls at our trainers almost angrily,
I swear there’s going to be a heavy shower,
I felt a drop and now another two
Splashing the top of my unpropped, chilled spine,
I sense my soul’s a bay a wall could clear
Of silt and Lydney newly formed behind.
Mensa:
It’s going to piss it down for sure, let’s head
On back to town and see what we can do.
Original appearance in New Dublin Press.
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