Report from the Dee

A continuation of my series of doggerel poems composed at pubs in Northern Britain. This one by the canal in Chester, at the Frog & Nightingale.

Report from the Dee

We have been hacking away at the stump of the Tree of Mystery,
A tricky u-turn for the canal boat:
His rapping was nonpareil, his gold diamonds twenty-four karat,
A pint with you & the present president is history.

Nonsense will guide me about the city walls,
And yet there's huge emotion in the sing-song.
It's cold & the black swans are getting everything wrong,
Squeezing to rhyme around my angels sacred freefalls.

I sense the dawn of a dark blue-green age.
Bricks or Martin Luther's tricksiness I believe,
Christ our Darling will the motorcycle watchmen relieve,
I'm just staring across at the cross in her cleavage.

Nonsense nor the Cheshire Cat have shown their grins today,
Retch at the pink wine popular in this county.
We will exterminate the rats, & their ancient bounty,
I'd be just as happy healthy with them anyway, any way.

Bicycle bells hectoring me like parliament,
Ding, & the future is eclipsed by white paintings under blacklight:
A mile-long housing project, no track-suits after the night,
Or the sun's son joyriding with the raiment as his bloody pavement.

Nonsense! Please pick up a pallet of biscuits.
Dog's nipples, dog's nipples - how quick you forget,
I adored you, but soon there'll be no time to regret.
No, sister, regurgitate too late & we must call it quits.