St Petersburg Concerto

Crazy Baltic weather of snowstorms and rainbows,
Hyperborean sun skeletizes life...
Severe Finnish granite embankments
Run straight to vanishing point.

Forever ponder “The Bronze Horseman”
And wonder.The puzzle can never be solved.
We have all been bitten by the serpent.
Pushkin,scallywag,see what you have done!

This city,blessed and damned in equal parts,
Indentures questing souls with fierce demands;
No,we are not yet risen from the marsh,
And the dark sea does not relinquish us.

In the end,you are sick of myth and legend,
The niggling past that misses no chance
To intrude a correspondence,a haunting comment
On all that otherwise would simply be.

We are all in the text,this glorious fiction,
Mummers and prompters,born to the stage.
History,destiny: all the grand themes chain us,
The last days of Atlantis ours to await.

Demi-gods and idols all have their shrines here.
Such virulent splendour.Cynicism is no defence.
A paltry sandgrain will grow a pearl,
Outshining and outliving its common shell.

Gogol looked up,and the ground shifted under his feet.
He fell,rose,fell again; the sky wrapped him in its chequered overcoat,
Gave him pen and paper,made him clerk of the universe,
Of the damned soul,scribbling prophecies
Whispered in his ears by weird conflicting voices.
His nose grew and grew like Pinocchio’s
As he danced on strings for the hooded puppetmaster,
Jeered by silhouettes in the fog.

Bone-built city of transfiguration,
Who here is not a martyr, a Christ?
A black widow keeps the sacred flame,
Cupping it in her imperious hands.

Peter in Roman toga and laurel crown
Grapples the reins,his steed rearing
Up at the city he created from his pain.
Stranded in mid-air,he glares down.

Pushkin at Boldino in autumn,nervous,angry,
Self-exiled to write,but the verse still just will not come,
His head buzzes,his gut hurts...
How to clear his debts if he cannot produce
A masterpiece to sell for publication?
But how can he concentrate on poetry
While his wife is alone in Petersburg,
A dozen shameless beaus circling round her...
He sits and dashes off a letter,berating her:
“You’re proud that studs chase after you like a bitch,
Their tails stiff up in the air,sniffing your arse...”
And,eventually,the words,his friends,come to console him,
Each day he awakes early,works in bed till three in the afternoon,
The rides horseback in the muddy fields for hours,
Cooling his overheated brain...

Outrageously the demiurge wagered his will,
Certain that Providence would come to his aid:
Peter plotted the city with ruler in hand,
Geometry of islands,canal and prospects,
Herding myriads of slaves to the dreaded delta,-
Peasants,soldiers,convicts and prisoners of war,-
Driven day and night with the knout,
To perish in their thousands,uncounted,unmourned,
Drenched by rains,attacked by swarming mosquitoes,
Pounding wooden piles into the swamp,
As their master ever urged more haste and more care.

Even before the city was completed,
Rumours and prophecies spread among the people
That Petersburg wascursed,doomed to destruction,
For the baleful kikimora had been seen
Hopping into the belltower of the Trinity church,
Foretelling that this work of the Antichrist
Could not long endure.
Though the Tsar pursued such naysayers
And had them flogged,burned and broken on the rack,
Still he could not stop the evil tongues.

River-twinned,the Winter Palace
Glows against pale northern sky,
White columns marching hypnotically
Through the light blue mind.

Pale and unkempt, champagne glass always in hand,
Glinka wanders through the salons and soirees,
Then returns to his apartment to record in his notebook
The headaches,stomach aches,toothaches and neck aches
That torment him,with the details of all the doctors who attend him
And the effectiveness of their prescriptions.
He adds the odd comment on music,just in passing.
And in his head the Viennese waltz
Is morphing into something Russian,
Curving with elegant desires and spiritual hurt.
One day he leaves Petersburg for good,
Fleeing the awful climate and the poisonous gossips,
The stupid critics and the philistines,
And,getting out of his carriage at the city limits,
Spits on the ground,so unworthy of his genius.


Wine,cognac,vodka...from a gentleman to a bum,
Puffy crumbling face,red nose and bedraggled redbrown hair,
Huge greyblue eyes straring into the void,
Mussorgsky hunches in a tavern,among the drunks,his brothers,
At home in the majestic grotesque...
This torment is the service of higher powers,
This isolation is the nature of God.
Only the godless can be so religious,
Mystical realists fevered with the world
Time to challenge every truism,
To turn the world upside-down and inside-out,
And honour the absurd.

Alexandre Benois,stooped,bald and blackbearded,
Brown eyes vigilant behind pince-nez,
Gazes out from his apartment window
Over the snowy city,-to bring Russia back
Into the arms of Europe! What ballets
The two could dance together!
Let music,art and theatre unite
To revive the city and the soul of man,
All the glorious ghosts returning,
A pageant filling the streets!
(Cosmopolitan romance,as in the English shop
On Nevsky Prospect,full of comforts:
Fruitcakes and Pears soap,picture puzzles,
Striped blazers and football jerseys
In the colours of Oxford and Cambridge).

Receiving guests in her apartment after midnight,
Recumbent on chaise-longue,smoking long scented cigarettes,
And harshly peering through a lorgnette,
Zinaida Gippius-respected,hated and feared-
Presides over the Symbolist movement
With ex cathedra epigrams and Olympian pronouncements.
Long and thin,in floating Snow Queen robes,
Disdainful smile forever on her lips,
She tests young aspirants without mercy
As knights pleading fealty to the Lady,
Offering their lives for a touch of her hand.

In the auditorium of the Geographical Society,
A large crowd gathers to hear a lecture
By Blok,all dressed in monks’ cloaks and high chic,
Fashionable thinkers,writers,artists,and cognoscenti,
As the poet –black-clad like a priest-
Pronounces in hypnotic monotone,
Handsome face haloed with fair curls,
Exalted look in his pale grey eyes,
Beloved icon of all Russia’s women,
Who send endless letters proclaiming their fealty,
Pleading to meet him,to let them bear his children.
(One adoring female fan follows him in the street,
Picking up the cigarette butts he drops,
Colelcting them in a small box,a precious relic to her;
Often she goes to his house,half-mad with love,
And,not daring to ring,stands at the door,
Kissing the doorhandles and weeping).
His every step is avidly observed,his every word
Discussed and analayzed,and every poem
Parsed for clues to the private man.

One morning in October,1919,-
In the winter of hunger,curfews,violence and decay,
With people using their books and furniture for firewood,
And eating dogs,cats and rats to survive,
Even tearing apart fallen horses in the streets
For the precious flesh,while all around
Others drop and die on the icy pavements-
As Blok and Bely walk along Nevsky Prospect,
They come across a bored militiaman,rifle over shoulder,
Standing,pissing,writing his name in urine
In the snow,-and Bely calls out to him:
“I don’t know how to write on snow!
I need just a little ink,and a scrap of paper!”

Only ballet could soothe his cares
And distract him...Nicholas the First,
The martinet attempting to drill all Russia
On the perfect parade ground in his head,
Sits in the dark,his bayonet eyes fixed
On the stage,seeing lines of soldiers
Regimented with uncompromising skill.
Strength and beauty must be united
In this new Russia:thus,for the production
Of La révolte au serial,the Tsar
Sends his own Guards officers to train
The corps de ballet in military techniques,
Demanding from them the same discipline
And subordination as from his troops,
And ,when the ballerinas tire of drill
And grow lazy,he comes to rehearsal
And berates them:”Practise seriously,
Or you will be made to stand outside
In the snow and ice for two hours
With rifles,in your dancing shoes,”
Whereupon the scared dancers return
To their practice with sudden zeal.

The white nights are here:
We shall stay up till dawn,walking round the city,
Talking about everything as we sip beer and champagne,
Caressing the granite embankments
And watching the bridges rise for ships to sail by...
This line we walk is the tightrope
Between order and chaos,
Where sober hearts discover
Their vital madness,
And stoics cry into the heedless dark.

Runes of Sweden

The runes call me to heal my wounds,
Transform myself, true to the Wyrd,
Shape the world with the indwelling gods…
Rune : roar and whisper from within,
Incantation of the soul,
The binding knot…
I carve this runestave on the lakes and forests of Sweden.

Bright runes and murk runes :
Break down the barriers
Between worlds, reveal the hidden meanings,
By web-work of words,
Skaldcraft of the spirit,
Feats of the rime-thurs.

That the dead may stay in their graves
And the walking dead return to their graves
And the speaking dead give aid when invoked
The runester rides the horse of the air
And speaks red runes in heaven’s ear.

On the Gripsholm stone, inscribed in a serpent :
Tola had this stone raised for his son Harald, Yngvarr’s brother.
They fared boldly
Far away after gold
And in the east
They gave food to the eagle;
They died in the south
In Serkland.

A niding inscribed on the Björketorp stone :
Prophecy of destruction !
A row of bright runes hid I here,
Runes loaded with magic.
Through perversity, and without rest,
On the outside,
There is a deceitful death for the one
Who breaks this stone.

Fehu : the three goddesses, seers who read the runes aright,
Gold that increases with use, through circulation,
Transforming from one shape into another,
Benison to the wise, strife to the foolish,
Fire generated out of dark water, out of the deep,
Expanding throughout the cosmos,
The wolf in the woods of the self,
The serpent of light…
This is the power to fulfil
All that we are born for,
Ending to begin again.
They say that if you sleep
Benath an elderberry tree’s branches
On Midsmmer’s Day,
You may see the King of the Fairies.

Uruz : fire blended with the waters,
Horns of the aurochs, wild and ferocious,
Goring and piercing in rage and love,
Mother of matter, busily working its will into shapes…
Burn off the dross, refine the metal,
Else annihilate the imperfect
If it stubbornly resists…
The Void, Ginnungagap,
Between Fire and Ice,
The womb of Ymir
The androgynous giant
Nourished by the primeval cow’s udders…
Climb the silver birch
Into the sky,
Flame-fountain
Quaking the earth,
Return to the cradle
To find yourself;
Silver birch,
Show me the way through the woods.

Thurs : pure action and potency,
Force of a straight line, directed on target,
The spear sailing through the air
From the thunder god’s hand,
The two poles fused together,
Regeneration, rain,
The thorn drawing blood…
Force that fashioned Ymir,
Father and mother of the gods,
Rushing power of seed,
Thunder breaking open the sky.
Are you afraid to pluck the rose
For fear of being pricked?
Sloe gin from the blackthorn
Make holy drunkenness,
Black fruits that ripen
After the first winter frost.

Ansuz : the mind of Odin,
Reconciling the two halves,
The right and the left,
The magical power transmitted
From the ancestors
From generation to generation;
These powers by which man
May transform himself,
Finding knowledge in word and work…
O breath and symbol,
Vessel of power !
The prolific mouth
Making Word into world.
Sound,speech,music:
Let the wishful wind blow
Through everything.
Deep are the roots
And thick are the branches
Of the ash tree,
Connecting all realms,
Expressing the hidden.

Raidho : the law of right order,
The rising and setting of the sun,
Dance, music and poetry as one,
The organisation of states and institutions,
Held in balance with delicate violence…
A sturdy wagon and a strong horse
Are needed on the hard road,
The perilous road between worlds…
Mathematical proportion,
Beautiful logic, and tally lore,
Flowing wheels, spiralling towards the destination…
Sudden lightning
That fires the heavenly order.
Beat of the shaman’s drum,
Measured and momentous,
Propelling the mind through space.
The oak is mmy door,
My ship under sail,
My acorn that grows slowly,slowly
But sure of itself…

Kenaz : the force to shape,
The torch in the night,
Hearth fires and harrow,
Forge and pyre…
The craftsman’s cunning,
The joyous lust of the maker,
Dissolving to recreate…
Who knows is able,
To cleave,bash,bend and weld,
And fashion for all.
Hermaphroditic,
The pine tree spreads
Its bounty of sweet sharp small,
All steady endeavour
Towards the true aim.

Gebo : consciousness, life-breath and form,
Flowing into each other
To be transformed and returned to the source…
Giving and receiving,
Binding the bonds between gods and men,
Building bridges between worlds…
This is the way of saining,
The way of sacrifice,
The increase out of loss…
O magical marriage,
Exchange of holy vows !
Equal exchange of energies
Held in utter balance.
Stately and forbearing,
The elm tree sheds its grace,
Helping us to attain
Balance and endurance.

Wunjo : joy that binds and marshals forces
And bends them to a purpose;
Harmony with the self,
Harmony with the world,
Building a good house of the soul…
What bliss to know
That everything has meaning,
Everything is whole…
Selfless love
Demanding nothing
Yet giving entirely of itself
Without expectation of return,
Happy simpy to see in all things
The higher power self-delighting.
In the clear mountain air
The fir tree lofts its joyous shout,
Surveying the earth like an eagle.

Hagalaz : fire and ice encapsulated
In a hailstone egg,
Seed of the universe…
Nine worlds in the roots and branches
Of the World-Tree,
Nine of fruition and completion,
The yew in the berry…
Rune mother,
Womb of all runes…
The snowflake iridesces
With rainbow code
Andf through the body
Spirals the DNA.
The power of Fire
Moving upwards,outwards,
And the power of water
Moving downwards,outwards,
Binding together
In complementary force.
Rowan tree,
Lady of the High Places,
Whisper the secrets
Of the soul;
I see in your red berries
The five-pointed star.

Nauthiz : the force of cosmic resistance
To the will and its actions,
Need-fire from friction,
Kindling the higher flame…
The Norns come forth
To establish the law;
Out of becoming into being
The world is born into suffering
And destruction.
See, all that has ever been
Happens now, in this changing
Oneness, doing its work.
Beech mast to the pig
Is wisdom to me,
The fine bark of the sky
Calls me to write.

Isa : force of contraction into stillness,
Inward-turning force,
Force of density,
Fire and ice in balance…
The mind stilled and concentrated,
Holding the self together
Through its trials…
The ice-bridge extends before you,
Who must cross the abyss
By a hair’s breadth…
One day you too will be ice.
This that binds the atom’s spheres,
And times and seasons.
Move forward,
Act and you will know.
Moonshine on white shining snow
And razorblade air
Slashing myriad angles,
Geometry of winter.
I want no truth but my own
To fashion and fight for.
Alder tree,
Be my bridge,
Be my whistle,
Help me turn weakness
Into strength.

Jera : the twelvemonth of the sun,
The turning millstone,
The time of sowing, growing and harvesting,
Always returning to begin again,
Arising, becoming and passing away,
Reaping reward from right labour,
Peace, prosperity and freedom…
This development cannot be chivvied or hastened,
For the inside must agree with the outside
And grow in season and grace,
Spiralling to fruition
In subtle flow.
From the hazel tree
Fashion dowsing rods
And wands,
And, eating the nuts,
Become wise.
Nauthiz : the force of cosmic resistance
To the will and its actions,
Need-fire from friction,
Kindling the higher flame…
The Norns come forth
To establish the law;
Out of becoming into being
The world is born into suffering
And destruction.

Eihwaz : axis of Yggdrasill,
The yew-tree column
By which the magical fire is generated,
Rising and descending
Through the body’s wheels,
Transforming matter into spirit,
Reconciling opposites,
Binding heaven, earth and underworld…
To live for a thousand years
Like the yew,
Renewing itself from the core,
Guarding the boneyard,
Counselling the dead.

Perthro : to fathom the mystery of wyrd,
That is the ultimate test,
Casting the runes into the cup,
Into the Well of Wyrd…
Immortal dance of x, y and z,
The horizontal and the vertical,
Ceaseless change making good the world…
See how iron
Can be absorbed and transfoermed
Into myriads of things
Yet remains itself.
The aspen’s quivering
Is shimmering whispers
From within,
Shields of light,
Wheels of light…

Elhaz : here is the upright stave,
The splayed hand,
The horns of the hart,
The swan in flight,
The rainbow bridge,
The gesture of prayer and invocation.
Your fetch goes with you everywhere,
Taking shapes,
Working magic…
Spinal fluid strengthens the backbone,
Patient endurance
And the green force in plants…
Strong is the reed
Yet out of its hollows
The air pipes music
In tune with the heart…

Sowilo : the sun for all with eyes to see,
The day sun and the night sun,
That guide the seafarer from shore to shore,
The Pleiades in the night sky,
The sun-wheel revolving,
He who develops the will by this light
Is blessed with honour and success.
Here are the serpent centres of the earth,
Where the heavenly and chthonic forces
Converge with surging spiral power.
This is the vortex,
Energy pushing upwards and outwards,
Then contracting back to a point
Over and over;
Moving the space around,
Making things happen.
Tiny white flowers
Of the spindle tree,
Flashes in the dark
Behind my eyes.

Tiwaz : the Lodestar in heaven,
Keeping its troth,
Summit of the World-Tree,
Keeping cosmic order and justice,
Keeping separate the poles,
Beacon of the deepest most serene wisdom,
The detached transcendent wisdom
At the centre of things.
The phallus upraised
Shoots seed into the egg,
Sacrificing the seed
For the greater purpose.
Let the spear fly
And not miss the mark.
Let the pillars of the house
Stand tall and firm.
Holly tree
Whose leaves are soft in summer
And spiked in winter,
Be the spears of an army
Marching to victory.

Berkano : the Birch Goddess
Who rules over transformation,
Over the rites of passage,
And the seasons,
The cycle of birth,life,death and rebirth,
Conserving and protecting,
It takes seed substance,
Hides it in its enclosure,
Breaks the enclosure, and bears the transformed substance forth.
Here is the birch rod,
The wand of magic working,
The moment of being
Whence all becoming issues,
The eternal now,
It is the mystery of the word…
The mother’s and the lover’s breasts
Give suck to the mewling soul.
Enclose and contain that which you are bringing forth;
Conceal, protect and nourish the secret
Until it is ready to come.
Hornbeam,
Ox-yoke of the spirit,
Waterwheel of the soul,
Be the mother standing firm
And releasing her offspring.

Ehwaz : the horse on which the runester rides
From one world to the other,
The perfect harmony of horse and rider,
The fetch at work in the world…
Odin and Sleipnir fused into one,
Ten feet, three eyes and one tail…
Ecstasy:the male and the female
Conjoining, making a star.
To communicate with all things,
With people,animals,rocks and plants,
And with beings of other levels.
The ivy spirals
Towards the light,
Bringing life or death,
Pushig into creveices bloldly.

Mannaz : the structure of divine consciousness in man,
Imparted through a genetic link
With the god of consciousness;
Men are descendants of the gods,
The bond unbreakable.
O, god made flesh,
Consciousness made manifest,
Mind and memory corresponding,
Communicating freely with each other,
Informing the whole self.
O, tripartite moon,
Synthesising intellect and intuition,
Measuring and melding …
Let the force of the soul
Drive towards perfection,
To know its own nature
And fulfil its work;
Let man and nature
Collaborate as equals,
Each fulfilling the other.
The gyring vine
Fruits with promise
Of joy and inspiration,
Energy that must be trained…

Laguz : lake of primeval waters
Welling up from below,
Seething with life,
Waterfall where treasure is hidden,
Dark depths of the ship burial,
Rivers where Odin is the ferryman of souls,
The runester must fit himself out
With a solid ship to breast the waves,
To fare forth on the ebb and flow…
This blessed feel of swimming,
In the water but not of it,
Grasping the flow
As it escapes…
The willow draws the waters
Into its tent,
Wishing on the moon…

Ingwaz : the seed-force of gestation,
Released to bring forth plenty,
The rune withdrawn into secrecy
For the hidden exchange of energies
That causes transformation…
Will you go into the east,
Will you disappear from sight,
To fare into the dark realms
And return with strange gifts ?
Yes, I am my own grandfather,
My own grandmother,
Seeding my own regeneration,
Storing and forging the essence
Of experience to carry forward
Into my next self.
Five-pointed star
In the apple’s core:
The apple I eat
Reminds me of myself.

Dagaz : as day and darkness merge in twilight
The morning and evening stars
Shine into the darkness;
See the way between extremes,
Between left and right,
See in the extremes
The unifying idea…
Now the courage
To reache beyond the known.
This is victory,
The lovers’ supernova,
The seed’s explosion
Into absolute light,
The paean of the figure-of-eight.
Honeysuckle,
Entwine me in your branches,
Subtly reveal your secrets,
Succour me in my quest,
I trust in passion to guide me right.

Othala : this is the hallowed enclosure,
The land set apart,
The kin-fetch of the tribe,
The forces held within the ring
Must be well ordered
Made harmonious
For the common weal,
That peace and freedom reign…
The sly soul knows how to balance
Light against dark,
Inside against outside,
Order against chaos…
Lawmaker,beat the bounds
Of the world,give freedom
Its hearth,that all may prosper.
The soul craves to acquire
And possess what it needs to thrive,
Seeds of future abundance.
Rich yellow gorse flowers
Bloom throughout the eyar,
And attract the first bees,
Pollen, nectar, honey-
The diligent seeker’s reward.

Snowflake,
Crystal of ice and fire,
Of light and darkness,
Burning seed of life and death,
Sky-salt, earth-yeast…

Five hundred doors
And forty withal,
I know to be in Valhöll :
Eight hundred lone warriors
Go through a lone door
When they fare forth to fight the wolf.

Nine worlds of Yggdrasill,
Nine nights Odin hung upon the tree…

Here I am, whole,
Body, shape, ecstasy,
Breath, mind, memory,
Soul, fetch and luck.

Odin makes all things his own
And uses them according to his will,
Yet remains ever apart,
Forever changing shape,
Bringing the power of self-deification.
Not to worship the god,
To become the god;
With inspiration,will and sacred rites.
We must win from him by will
The holy words to open the doors of dawn,
He is ecstasy and awe and power,
Born of self-sacrifice,
Winner of the poetic mead,
Snake and eagle,
Lord of the hidden eye,
He binds together light and dark,
Life and death,
Conscious and unconscious.
Restlessly, relentlessly,
With boundless courage,
He strives neverendingly for wholeness.

Freyja, the golden sow,
The shamaness of the trance,
Woman of gold and harvest,
Erotic mistress of love songs,
Wedded to ecstasy,
Striving for divine inspiration,
She brings things into being,
Causes them to become,
And causes them to pass away…

I have seen in Gotland big rock crystals,
Honed into accurate magnifying lenses
Used by Viking craftsmen in their work,
And as sunstones for navigating
On overcast days, to work out the sun’s position.
There are also the picture stones,
Shaped like doorways,
Portals to the world of the dead,
Graven with horses, fighting.
Or the deceased,
Being greeted in Valhalla by a Valkyrie
With a drinking horn brimming with mead,
Others show the dead man riding Sleipnir,
To Valhalla, as the god himself has sent out
His own mount to bring the hero home,
An honoured guest to feast in his hall.

These runes are sounded on the air
As powers to move the world.

A Thames Odyssey

Wise old Thames, river of my birth,
Let the joys and miseries of this life
Dissolve in you,
Your muddy flow holy as the Ganges...
Under an ash tree in a field in the West,
Outside the village of Kemble,
You may see,if it pleases, a bubbling
Among the stones,
Water clear and spontaneous as the truth.
(Isis,sister-wife of my soul,
Practise your magic with abandon
And guide me through the dark).
A songthrush hidden in the thicket,
Calls the season to attention,
As the water molecules,magnetized
And commandeered,start to haul
And surge ahead,bullshouldering
Towards the far fantastic sea.

Winter-blanched,I head across fields
Through river mist,to the silhouette
Of St John the Baptist’s church
At Inglesham,medieval farmer’s work
Still traced in the furrows,-
The sweat of our forbears
Through short lives of poverty,
Toil and war,enslaved to whim,-
The Saxon stones mortared
With memory,storied with lives.

These bridges over the Thames
That I cross and re-cross,making
Stitches in time to save nine,
Through beloved detested England,
As I fasten on the heart like an icicle
Swirling with rainbows,
An Anglo-Saxon riddle, curt as death.

Water-horse on a bridle path
Of words,I breathe the elderflower
And dog rose,the sweet briar’s pink,
As the world hovers like a dragonfly,
Perfectly made for its purpose.
At Iffley lock,seeing the lock-keeper
Calmly happily doing his duty,
Stewarding the river with love,
As many men before had done,
I know there can be simple joy
Here,on earth,beyond the frustrations
And sophistries of will and mind.

Hither-and-thithering martins
Skitter about the air,never resting,
And on the Sinodun Hills,looking
Down across country,feeling the clash
Of tribes,the march of cultures,
The geology of the human heart,
I wonder like an Atrebate,
Watching a Roman city rise below.

Skylarks firework over Runnymede,
Bursting from the grass,the earth
Of England,with all its glories
And faults,-freedom!the inner law
That guides us on right paths....-
At the Air Force Memorial,
Reading the stone names of the dead,
Souls that fell from the skies
In the time of tribulation,
How can I not feel my smallness
And cowardice,a life half-wasted,
Given over to selfishness and shame?

Hampton Court Gardens open to me
A demi-paradise by the river,
Nature curbed and channelled,
Where intrigue and statecraft
Have wrestled the angel down;
So have I navigated,taking
Pagan vows in a Christian land.

On Tower Bridge, staring into the Pool
Of London, I think of the crocodile
Brought back from the Crusades
By Richard the Lionheart,
Which escaped into the Thames here,
Never to be seen again,
A British dragon taking flight.
Majestic London,we are one blood,
Brothers in this battle,life!

In the estuary, at Cliffe, a wreck
Lies in the black mud,
Abandoned for decades,
And cormorants stand in a line
On the jetty,immobile.
This is the exit,but not the end;
The hospitality of the dead
Is extended to all,without stint.
From my crumbling body
The language escapes,survives,
The code I have loved since birth,
Seduced by its roots and secrets,
Breathing its mystical sounds.