THE MOTHER LAND

 

She birthed you in a river of sweat

In a swarm of bees

In a hive of petroleum and gold

 

The oil ran between her thighs

Vaginal whispers

Throwing caution to the wind

 

Avast! we will set sail

tonight my pretty ones

 

O yes, it has been foretold

upon the day of reckoning

Ye shall be judged and found perfect

In deed and intention

 

Ye who have forsaken so much

In the quest for perfection and peace

Ye who have torn the world apart

In search of a warm nest

A resting place

between the slow moving thighs

Of some maternal beast

 

The city is your mother now

Drenched in sex and

proliferating cells

She slaps your thighs

You writhe in ecstasy

Her neon lips

That touch the silent Thames


------------------------------

 

Oedipus, Oedipus, where have you been?

I've been down to London to sleep with the queen.

And O, might I say, twas remarkably gay

We sat and played backgammon

many an hour, til the time came

To embrace the inevitable

 

our friends are departing

 

The owl and the pussycat

Have fled for warmer climes

And twenty thousand handkerchiefs

Are waving in the wind

The soldiers boarding trains

With stiffened cocks

And weeping eyes

Thinking of the months of sexless darkness

That will pervade their waking dreams


-----------------------------

 

and so departed

There is no more to say or do

But simply follow through

 

The city ticks and sways

The clocks turn, the rivers run

But the heart is dead

 

Surely ye know this by now

Ye who have seen so much

And travelled so far

I did not give you eyes for nothing my dear

 

The sickness has reached her climax

We are in the cherry blossom

of our most cancerous days

And each small day is numbered

with a fading piece of chalk