A Pastoral Pastiche

They encourage me to write while I was in there. I wrote this poem which they said had real promise.

A Pastoral Pastiche

On either side the river lie
Long fields of corn, and other stuff -
Which I cannot identify -
That clothe the hills and seem to meet
The ever lowering sky.
But this I know to be
An optical illusion,
Which causes simple country folk
A welter of confusion.

Now see the weary ploughman treading
Homeward o’er the lea,
Wondering what his dear wife Edith
Will have cooked him for his tea.
A change he hopes from last night -
A great big piece of mullet –
All day he’s tried hard to remove
The fishbone from his gullet.

He wanders lonely as a clown
Who, tired of circus and its thrills,
Longs to take up gardening,
And grow some golden daffodils.
For he was once a farmer’s boy,
Son of the soil – a Shropshire Lad,
Loved  his dear old mother –
But couldn’t stand his dad.

Meanwhile, in ivy covered cottage,
By a mill pond, dank and deep,
A weary woman waits and worries –
At the window see her weep.
Whispers to her dark-eyed daughter –
 Father’s late again, I fear,
 We’ll give the bugger ten more minutes –
 Then you can help me drink his beer.

  Just up and to the left of Dorset,
   A mile beyond the customs post,
   Girl Guides fold their tents in silence,
   And steal off home, to buttered toast.
   They’ve gone, and left their litter scattered -
   What a dirty little band -
  Just one corner of a forlorn field,
  That is forever, wasteland.

Five and twenty transit vans
Driving through the dark,
Porno for the parson,
Cocaine for the clerk -
Don’t go asking questions
It doesn’t do to pry -
Just watch the wall my darling
While the paedophiles go by.

 If I could keep my head, perhaps,
 While all around are in a tizzy,
 ‘Cos church clock’s stopped at three -
  If I could meet with Old Tom Cobley,
 And not to ask where’s thy grey mare?
 A better man I’d be –

 If I could fill each Happy Hour,
 In tavern warm and coach-house bright,
 With foaming porter from the barrel –
  I don’t think I’d go home tonight.

  But ours is not to reason why,
 Or do a runner on the sly,
 But bite the bullet where it falls –
 If we would grace Valhalla’s Halls.
 And so,upon this sceptre’d isle,
 This jewel set in silted sea,
 I leave these questions still unanswered, for
 It’s bugger all to do with me!


Please don't anyone try to reproduce this poem because I have copyrighted it.