A Poem a Day to Millennium 27 September 1999

MS Found in a Guinness Cap IV
Twixt Sisyphus and Socrates

Norman was, of course, a
Conquered Byzantine redone
By William the Decorator
In Hunnish hues, slow
Balustrades overhanging a
Ravennoid mosaic stairsweep
Of elegantine and travail,
Down which we foresaw
The hastings of Blue Ann
(In all those ways she hath)
En route from Avon to
Revelation: a second-hand
Apocalypse, her pestilences
Seeming trivial beside the
Placental gnawings of this
Conscientious tattooed whelping
Boy but a dragoon's tooth removed
From San Sebastian, yet every
Bit as lively on the griddle.
At the end, we were forced
To baste him for his hemming,
Take him up a smudgeon higher
Than his eyebrows would acknowledge
And set him curbly out for cartage
When the mimesweepers came about.