Jerusalem - Page 213

Who’s carving her initials on his arm

Despite his squeaking-hinge attempts to beg

Or plead. Den, trampled on by dead men’s feet,

Hears the round minstrel’s stern, stentorian shout

As Den’s stamped down into the splintery mire,

Resurfacing to hear the bard enquire

If Freddy Allen’s anywhere about,

Told in reply that he’s just down the street,

At which the children leave. The cackling throng

Redouble now their bestial, boisterous ways.

They kick Den harder as the band begin,

They gouge the shrieking Kenny’s puppet skin

And as the joyous, tumbling music plays

These slurring shades raise up their glaze-eyed song:

“Named for this inn, the jolly smokers we,

Up here near fifty year now, man and boy!

Pale in our great beyond, beyond the pale,

So drink up, down the hatch, hail, horrors, hail!

Leave us dead men and empties to enjoy

Our pie-eyed paralysed posterity!”

And plunged in quicksand pine Den twists like some

Half-landed fish pinched in between two planes,

Target for every last ethereal thug.

Forgotten, now, the taking of the drug.

Not even memory of his name remains

Nor life prior to this warped delirium

Of boots and threats. Nearby, Fat Kenny’s squeal

Competes now with the music’s weave and wail

As the two writhe in what appears to be

A pissed-up paradise or purgatory

Tags: Alan Moore Fantasy
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