Alchemisland

Delay after delay

A much needed string change

A much needed property for sale

Neither city-situated nor confined to wild dales

We offered, they took it, here comes happy days

I hated the work but I loved the pay

I feared the worst and, in a way, loved that pain

Close to tight pyjamas and pills on trays, nerve strain

A sense of freedom I find hard to explain, when Earth wanes

The thin purple curtain separating the real from the dreamed strains

An overwhelming delight impossible to constrain

Despite every grim betrayal, hope makes its loping way

Haggard and trenchbent up some ropeless, plan-slaying slope

Brittle rope bridge sways but holds

Long enough for us to make our way

Across, crosses affixed to our backs like greentea monkeys

All our money and monthlies slung in a trunk

Blood-shod, drunk with fatigue

We wanted Cametigue but the owner flunked

We offered asking but they got greedy, wanted up

Wanted us to ask how high when they shouted jump

I have no patience anymore, save for mayhem and time indoors

A sudden sense of new lands in view

A sudden and welcome sense of something new

Floors clean, who’ve never known a muddy boot

Rafters that’ve heard a few hooers, none as cute as you

The wanted call came early, like a juvenile delinquent on curfew

Or a premature ejaculator when she produces the second boob

When it’s easy it’s easy, smooth as silk, smooth as overlubed

Catching up with the future, a sea breeze as we ride our jetski

Into something better, something better for me

You have to give up to get it, to get west you go east

Everyone asking questions, it feels like I’m being debriefed

It was brief but for a second there I was dead and doomed, like the great barrier reef

I gave up weed, my kief I loved so well, my happiness’ sole key

I was walking the streets in the sleet

Every joy and passion passing and fleet

Now all the box is full of toys

A joy that’s supermassive melts my bleakness

I’m walking on sunshine, like Apollo bought me new sneakers

I’m hearing angel voices, like Gabriel leant me his speakers

Happiness is for seekers, falls into laps like a lapwing shot

But you can’t be overeager, can’t spite what you’ve got

That’s the difference between have and have not

Appreciating what’s already there, warts and all, corn and rot

It rocked and rocked and rocked, wind a great boxer socked

Our delicate cradle, that’s what we were afraid of;

Having to settle, having to take the soup;

That cursed ladle and associated label.