Alchemisland

In lush tropics because frequently my associates drop whilst shopping

Freakily, all reported a pattern, a repeating frequency they suspected

Mattered if that did not make them sound mad as Hatters: Number 23

Hats off to them, R Hattersley, for asking, mad bastards

Aesop steady slowgoing like Conrad’s boat

Setting off from the Cape of Good Hope

No stop until Congo Brazzaville

All systems go provided what I’m stowing remains unknown

Tastes you can mainline or traceless fade you can smoke

My bag bottom looks like a rolling tray

We’re going about as fast as a slo-mo train

The sashing water looks like gravy

Creationists told me there’s dinosaurs here, maybe

Prior to leaving, we visited a shaman who cast bones for us

He blew ochre-coloured dust into my mush using a rusty

Flute, imbued with confusion I was glued to his movements

My polluted mind struggled to divine the meaning of his missives

I saw a fever portrait of a lord in courtly livery kissing his mistress

Beneath a hawthorn tree by the banks of the River Lee

Leaning palefaced against the boat railing, I hate sailing

Thinking of nailing my assignment, meeting Simon

Handing over the consignment, getting out of here alive

I’ve struggled to survive, insect eating, I’m dying to thrive

Or dying trying, won’t line up for another man’s triumph

Last night a flight of spears bred much disquiet

In the quiet of night, natives thinking us some Navy

Thought to waylay us, most struck the water and sunk

But one hit clean, a dull thud as it thunked into the thick hull

I have seen such clinkered flanks repel bullets

I imagine the muscle required to breach iron with a wooden pilum

We neither see their faces nor hear their voices, only the patient

Voiceless void of the nighttime wood, lions and snakes

Side by side converging unto the Demiurge’s ophidian version

Ahead, water which hitherto swerved languidly

Turns rapid and urgent, going no further we can but detour

The Captain in this matter would not be diverted from that course

He is the man responsible, he fields all damage

And the death of a white man in Africa would fall into his lap

He will have clean hands, we will abandoned the boat

And take a raft, we will climb and climb until collapse

Inside myself seeking, finding a leaking wineskin.