Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Elegy For An Honoured Guest







Our blue bowl beauty cracks under the sun;
it groans, and constricts before our eyes
scientists warn that its time has come,
yet Keith 'Riff'' Richards is still alive.

The Rosella turns brown beneath this heat
the bees diminish and lose their direction
the ants have retreated beneath the ground
and old Keith still gets no satisfaction.

Our rivers are stagnant the fish are upended
heaving and gasping one eye to the sky
in dark green pools of still putrid waters
once fresh and flowing, now somewhere to die.

The loony deniers still dance their denial
of science, in greed and gormless myth.
It's said that Keith smoked his old man's ashes
just one more swaggering rock and roll riff.

Is that what we're doing with our inaction,
smoking the ashes of a wonderful world?
Is this the gift we pass down to our children;
a danse macabre: a disaster in twirl?

Whose world transfigures through our excesses?
We've fired the leaves, fouled water and air
no gods will warn us, scorn us or save us
we reap what we sow: no less than despair.

This Earth will receive an honoured guest
When Keith 'Riff' Richards is laid out to rest.


Note: The final two lines are reworked from WH Auden's elegy for WB Yeats.
Keith Richards is a member of the Rolling Stones rock band. He was infamous for his dissolute lifestyle, apart from his music. 












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