Who on earth would stack books like sticks?
Who would sit turning white-paper-pages
With blackened fingertips?
You should know that awaiting fire is nothing of a joke
Have you not heard of witches
on fiery trial, spitting curses
That just tightened the rope
And did you know
That the pages
Of every history book ever written
Once went up
In ancient whispers of smoke?
Every manuscript
Chronicling man’s unscripted
Fighting progression
It was
reduced to ash?
So we wrote it all again…
The Romans, messy, careless
And surely barbarians
We’ll adopt them as our
Ancient parents
Invaders of course,
Progressions must not
Be stifled by sentiment or remorse
The druids and their hoods
They left them among the leaves
In the woods
Before that
Well
No one can prove us wrong
We’ll say that humans
Hunted similar races
That were
Uglier but strong
Defeat, even eating them
Of course
That which stands before you
In physical form
Surely it cannot be wrong
Our history,
As far as we know
Is a tale of endless glory,
Since they tell of victory
In every song
So we’d made a start
The scholars are desperate
To start memorising the dates
Of all the events
That we are still
Required to create
Keep the candles burning
This could go on rather late
The bridges of London
We’ll say were built by English men
And when some malevolent
Invaders burnt them down
We built them up again
We’re resolute by nature
Bordered on two sides
Our land it does not shrink
We have intimidation in our eyes
Well we have all these haunted castles
Shakespeare used them in his plays
Let’s say we were conquered
By Normans
Hand-fought battles went on for days
We should be modest and believable
So let’s say they conquered us, so what?
If our past shapes our future let’s show
The things we are and what we’re not
We’re are a thing that empires covet
Some have tried many times
Our ships with crews that never sleep
Their cannonball
trajectory does not fall
They fly in a straight line
A book that chronicled a fire great
Reducing our capital to a raven’s nest
Sadly it was lost, Pepys wrote so well,
So we’ve told Dickens to try his best
We recreate from memories of books
The pictures help as well
Medieval times were all heads on sticks
It resembled what we’ll call hell
Heaven, that’s where the noble live
Those that were so gallant and brave
falling in their tons on the battlefield
Winged skeletons rising from their remains
The bible, as you know, survived the fire
It continues to teach us and guide
Reminds us of the elasticity of time
And encourages a most conscientious mind
We made adjustments, here and there,
Lazarus rising for example, readers in mind
We couldn’t let that tragic scene end
Without him delivering his warning on time
We think of the greater good you see
For the good of you, and the good of me
The plague, bubonic, spreading like fire
Is a fiction covering something dark and twisted
I can’t begin to describe how as the death toll rose
Our king fled for Belgium as the demons persisted
The history of London is actually unknown!
Well you would moan, but what did you think?
The Thames is a man-made canal they froze themselves
when ice skate sales were on the brink
And bodies that fall in, still alive or dead
They scoop them up, make wigs and cut textiles
The ones still breathing are given the job of
Gathering the bones of the executed neatly arranging them in piles
Jack the Ripper, Member of Parliament I should say
Was in charge of cleaning up east London crime
His method was questionable, objections from
Speakers in parliament, but murders in a year went from 38 to 9
Henry, yes he was large, rotund, had his fun with women,
But each of his wives was ensnared by courtiers in cloaks
They were promised recompense, rewards that never materialised
When they killed him, each time, they picked a lookalike from the village folk
And I’m no historian, but why assume
That soldiers marched all the way from Rome
To what was of little value,
Cold, wet, a far cry from home
No evidence of course,
They just put themselves about
And there’s a good chance,
The Vikings came, you could see bridges,
Burning in their eyes, they arm-wrestled
Journeying on longboats of considerable size
King Charles II had an imagination alright,
Kept the wine flowing alright,
Enquiring minds and lips
Were busied gulping it all down
And kissing women who span madly around
Their cheeks
The colour of rose hips...
Who are these men that hold books under their arm
In such a way as a woman clutches a purse?
They arrive in endless streams conversing in their
Small groups, absent mindedly
Opening and closing books that are in
Different languages,
My turn to take five, look after this place,
I’ll be just out back, chewing my wife’s sandwiches.
I eavesdrop a little, a vice of mine,
Hear them talking about their jobs
On the factory line
Men and machines, men as machines
Or machines made by men, machines
That dream in factory nights,
Locked away and out of sight,
Quietest place you’ll find
But they’re restless,
I’ve seen the machines sigh
I’ve seen the steam that shoots out
As the whistle blows calling time,
They are restless machines and
—The whistle blows and
The machines are wandering home after
Getting blind drunk,
Dreaming…
In a few hours they will be woken
By a jangling set of keys that
Starts them up an hour or two early
So that they are fully operational
When the hungover workers arrive
Beating their chests and
Stretching their lever-pulling arms,
The machines grind their gears in protest,
Become confrontational,
Grinding the axe for a while now,
They’re all worked up, high pressure,
And yet no one takes notice
The steam flowing as promised
The men are ready in wait
A little release of steam
Machine’s are functioning well today
Factories like these run themselves
With their routine set in stone,
you can whine and moan and they will,
Mostly to their wives on the phone
During their allotted break,
You can come back early, but never late,
Echoing a cuckoo-clock world
Of perpetual motion, the machines
Dream of a life outside, they have heard
So much about irons and their boards,
And baths with plugs on a chain,
Manhole covers, oven doors and drains,
The machines do what they were made to do,
Workers too, this job chose them
For their durability, stocky build, the confusion and
absence of revolution in their eyes,
Life’s lustre hides in Friday’s pies,
Yawning men find it in the coffee
*** as it boils on Monday morning,
On Tuesday it will taste like soil again,
And on rare occasions, you’ll see it
When the sun comes through the
Highest window, and eventually,
On the right day, the right time,
it reflects and refracts,
The whole factory is scattered
With light artefacts, as if glass was
Raining down from the sky,
They take five, in celebration of
Their planet’s undiminished charms,
And though a bit longer to enjoy them
Wouldn’t do any harm
They are ordered to resume order
Belts and levers and rivets and arms
Must pull, a few more hours of life
Set to whistles and alarms
Creak! *There’s another dodgy floorboard!
How quaint, we’ve gone back in time,
I can’t reach the books...
*Shall we walk past the pond
On our way to the tailors?
A fine suit, perhaps we’ll
Also need a coat and a pair of shoes
