A GALLEON FLOATED

• The song version of this poem may be limited to the verses marked with an asterisk.

*: From a cave where the velvet over all

made something tall look rather small,

a galleon floated, looming vast,

cut from a picture down from the wall,

with pregnant sails of purple past,

a lofty poop and a triple mast.

*: In the hold below I could hear the slaves

groan distaste for their living grave;

yet we aloft could stroll the deck

with parasols to shield their gaze:

wearing purses around our necks,

containing coins and open cheques.

*: A braided captain, (Bligh-faced scowl,)

quipped commands - and his breath was foul -

to mates and minions limitless;

and all would give the appointed growl,

reacting quick to their lord’s address:

obedient pawns in his private chess.

*: I roamed in a feeble quest for the urn

which housed the box where the incense burned:

concealed on a deck I could not regain,

and guarded by those whom it didn’t concern.

Yet time and again I could hear the refrain

of a song that was meshed with a beckoning strain.

*: And as I gazed at the timbered floor,

I felt distress at the sight I saw,

watching the fingers of fungus grow

like seaweed clutching a stricken shore,

and conscious now of the suction slow

from hungry fathoms which lurked below.

*: And as I gasped for a breath of air

through a peepsight porthole, standing there,

I wore my doom like a tattered mink.

My eyes perceived the horizon where

we ploughed our way to the ocean’s brink

over blackened waves of steaming ink.

*: A dawnless sun had fled the sky

when I clambered down from the deck, on high,

to the balsa raft that I kept in tow,

looking round with a hopeful sigh

for arms that declined to let me go:

that none were there was a secret woe.

*: The creaking galleon pulled away,

and its shape was stark till it turned to grey,

with its pennant coiled like a shrivelled rose,

that had bloomed too long, yet defied decay:

while the captain stood in his martyr’s pose,

forever firing at fictitious foes.

*: I awoke from a sleep which weeks consumed

with a clearer head and lighter gloom,

to perceive an isle where some Dover cliffs

sheered in white - but of granite hewn -

to the height where eagles’ eyries lift

a shadowed calm from each snowy drift.

*: As I dragged my feet on the slither of sand,

(from the wall to the ocean, a shrinking band,)

I sought the tunnel on an ancient chart

that would spare my climb to the hinterland;

but the track I found was for horse and cart,

and it spiralled up from a sluggish start.

*: On a lofty nook I thatched a roof

that was blossomless, and yet bulletproof,

enclosing the musk of new-mown hay,

fermenting warm in a nest aloof;

• and anchored here to the place I lay,

• I floated far in a dream away.

* (For the song version of this poem, the last two lines of verse 11 should read:-

and my hair was trailed in a Milky Way,

till a mirror gawped at the long delay.

Then jump to verse 33.)

12:

I had found myself an observer’s perch

for the goings-on in a shabby church,

where vicars preached their rival faith,

promoting bias unresearched;

and each to all the others gave

the name of Dogma’s Foolish Slave.

13:

Below, the congregation snoozed,

assigned to nests instead of pews:

the hens with flower pots for hats:

the cocks with cases that were used

to store the maize which made them fat

and unattractive plutocrats.

14:

The chime of twelve had rung the clock

when each would take the case he’d locked,

and put some corn in a vacant nest

to cajole some hen in a pretty frock

to lay the eggs that he might suggest

would bring to their lives its interest.

15:

And later on, when the clock struck three,

they were fighting near to catastrophe;

and wearing hoods to mask their eyes,

the victor-birds would clamber free,

trying another nest for size -

winning a loser, left as prize.

16:

And later still, when the clock struck six,

the choir of the church was filled with chicks;

and each was piping as it looked around,

(fluttering up to the crucifix,)

for the pair it had known, but not since found,

before it was thrown on the merry-go-round.

17:

Then all at once, through the open door,

a farmer, dressed like a matador,

came gliding gracefully down the aisle

till he reached a spot on the central floor,

then took from his bag tomatoes - vile -

to pelt the vicars with elegant style.

18:

Then out he strode from the shabby church,

and none of the chickens were left on a perch.

They followed him into the field where he cried:

"This is our temple - the quest in our search-

Our seat is the grass and our window the sky,

with life as the preacher who never can lie!"

19:

The chicks were gathered in a central roost,

and fed with the best that the farms produce;

and the hens who tended them strove to build

a family pen that they all could use:

while the cocks developed their farming skill:

the corn to sow and the fields to till.

20:

And the chicks grew up as a healthy brood,

who had ample roots to their attitude,

while their plumage blazed in the midday sun;

and the passers-by who stopped to view

were impressed, at least, and often stunned

by this tribe without comparison.

21:

On the lofty nook where I lay asleep,

I felt content in a slumber deep.

Then an image rose of the ocean’s brink,

and I cringed at once to a frightened heap:

for the nightmare scene was so distinct,

it infused my dream with the shock of pink.

22:

There were tom-toms drumming out a wild harangue

through a jungle echoing with thumps and bangs,

with the clank of metal, and with human shrieks,

while a host of warriors danced and sang -

praising art and quoting Greek,

while killing pigs to roast their meat.

23:

And their kings were giants who continued to grow

till they juggled with the planets, and had set them in a row,

Yet the triumph on their faces had an element of scorn

when their telescopes were focused on the midgets below.

And it didn’t seem to matter how they trampled on the corn;

but on those who had to eat it, the expressions were forlorn.

24:

The number of the giants was greater every day,

and they sat around a table in a travesty of play;

and the betting on each card had a penalty so high

that the bluffing was enormous, for they simply couldn’t pay.

But with pistols at the ready, they were quite prepared to die,

if anyone accused them of a quibble, or a lie.

25:

Then suddenly I shuddered with a spasm of dismay.

The earth was a’bubbling like chewing-gum ablaze,

while the sky was a mushroom with the stench of death,

shrouding a jungle of sticks in disarray.

For the screaming gale of a dragon’s breath

had stolen their verdure in a flagrant theft.

26:

And the hawks lay dying, while the doves lay dead,

grasped in their talons as if they were wed;

and their eyes were the colour of a fish-slab cod’s

melting on the pavement where their wounds had bled.

If living is the track where the deity has trod,

there wasn’t any living - so there isn’t any God!

27:

I swept my vision like a windscreen wet

with the dew of a nightmare I wanted to forget,

till a road appeared that was clear enough,

and I felt that I knew it like a face once met -

unless it emerged as the wishful stuff

that is dreamland-drenched with the wine of love.

28:

In a crowd of people standing round,

I noticed now that they all wore crowns.

Some were vast, and some were not,

but they took them off and threw them down,

and all were placed in a melting-pot

which was full of steam, and fiery hot.

29:

So they trundled up with a mighty mould,

and they poured into this the liquid gold.

The crown they made was a work of art,

and was set on a dais which all could behold.

And their heads were bare as they filled their hearts

with the mother’s joy that a birth imparts.

30:

Then the children came in a stately file,

and were given orbs of a modern style.

They were cut from glass, and lustrous bright,

yet each was made to suit the child -

to find and fix his own delight,

within a form of equal height.

31:

And they came together in a solemn ring

to circle the crown they were honouring;

and they chanted soft till a song began.

Though at first the refrain was hard to sing,

they practised on till the notes all rang

to the cadences of a master plan.

32:

Refreshed in sleep, I at last awoke,

and my dreams had vanished as if chimney-smoke;

but my lofty cabin was as real as day.

It seemed I was carrying a prophet’s cloak;

and my hair was trailed in a Milky Way,

till a mirror gawped at the long delay.

*: Then all at once my dark retreat

swelled like a melon in the summer’s heat,

while I floated light with nimble hands,

grasping a tiller in the driver’s seat.

And the roof was hull to a ship that began

to cleave the breeze in a wonderland.

*: From the lidless box of an open night

the vessel soared to a mileless height.

And here the Earth was a light which lit

a beacon path on the troubled right:

while left and centre, exquisite

were the beams that other stars emit.

*: And everywhere was a host of friends

who plied their tasks for the journey’s end,

shifting tackle and lifting weights,

as if in thought they could all transcend

the fatal doubts which emasculate

the projected plans we initiate.

*: And the incense tang that I once had craved

was wafted now from each stellar cave,

as lips which flutter a lunar kiss

can intimate their fraternal praise.

It seemed for long I had wanted this,

and the sunset burned in my happiness.