Alchemisland

Funeral dirges sounding As our so-called leaders retreat to ground Redoubts drilled so far down the thin denizens who will henceforth Will eat from tins and subsist on medicines Hear nothing when the nuke show astounds No evidence whatsoever that anything went down Last hold outs Growing old young in steel cask holdfasts Urgent last…

Silent sermons, eyeless virgins Soul searching, stoking cold embers Visions of undying hope hued birdfeather Furtive things, loping and bowed, haunting aisles soundless Bodilessly shifting curtains Returning in earnest from the Boundless or the Furnace at odd hours.

The third three An ordained knifeblade gleams A tallow light reaches shadowed aisles through the western Window nearest the vestry where Once a well-dressed gentry Had seats assigned for vespers Now is it gone, like November to a June rememberer.

In a dirty church far from its best term. Its former Vicar yet holds his cooled boldness in a stiffness of shoulder And a certain vigour; a milk-curdling figure in his day, all piss and vinegar. Older than eighty, sovereigned fingers fag stained and booze shaky On his nightly sojourn across the grange turns away.…

A little to the left While I pilfer all you have left Reconnaissance, know you keep it in a hidden cleft Between two nail-mad boards, behind the bed So in I crept on knell of ten. In my vault I’ve got fuck all Wanna wage like a footballer But I didn’t shouldertoss spilled salt Haven’t…