Alchemisland

Talk about planned obsolescence

Mad all, road-pulled by pheasant instincts.

A clan of manful men hide-clad: me, my brother, and dad

Whose breezy freeness easies people, even the creed-y;

Strove the greedy to inhabit those golder frames made

By his gilding assess; or gelding; or dismaying alternately.

Bladelike wielded phrase

What he proclaimed became best.

We were trained day by day

By his ways of address, his quaint dress

Penchant for pullovers sleeveless, like the fifties and sixties never ended

And Heartbeat was real.

If we misbehaved when we were on the way

He was not afraid to pull over, to redden rear-ends

All toward the good in the end.

Whole days we quailed awaiting his return.

Yearning as cooks for flavour after his praise.

We worshipped and aped in games his quiet dangerous.

Lacking cruelty yet

An enhancing Chancer’s tact, akin guile, and Wicklow wiles;

He defied all rulers and rules save kindness.

The opposite of aimlessness

Rigour manifest this digger of dams, dammer of rivers

How he sired us to become the father of glum quiverers

Nerve bundles in stiff collar shirts, pleasers and givers

Responsibility shirkers, who never lower to truck with exertion

Whose only Gods Bread and Circus.