Sacral Scott

It drew close to the end of night,
With red shades cast at Calvary,
The air kissed every cheek its bite,
The hour love was no more to see.

They mingled closer, all but one
With red shades cast at Calvary,
An aging woman to age come,
The hour love was no more to see.

They bundled what had been their sign
With red shades cast at Calvary
Let need and fear double design
The hour love is no more to see.

A friend was rich and gave his all
With red shades cast at Calvary
They crossed a riven woven wall
The hour love was no more to see.

Then no one dared to think of hell
With red shades cast at Calvary
Passing beyond the want to tell
The hour with love no more to see.

They wondered at the kind of part
When red shades come to Calvary
They took a passing sort of cart
And thought of love no more to see.

When some, and one within that line
Of red shades cast on Calvary
Fell thinking on the very time
Love had been felt and quick to see.

When some of them with barren hands
Drew redly about Calvary
Their thoughts freed themselves from demands
And such love fell about surely.

For St Cross

An old anticlerical ensign is swaying
On Holy Cross scaffold – Don John he is back
And I watched him, walking, to deliver my poem,
My captain and king, in my treacherous way.

I thought, “You old bastard, how have you come slinking
Now driven from Bailleul-en-Vimeu, from England
Somewhere in the north, brooding Castle at Barnard,
From penning one lion and licking another,
Away from Galloway, the thistle, the rose –
Rubbished at Annan and scrubbed by Ben Jowett
To preach out the Greeks and love don’t you just know it
I’ll throw it
Kow-tow it
The towers of Jowett

Beat out of the academe, sold down the river
For top-tier nothings, you spent your last penny
On a quiet grave orchard more worthy than any?

God damn you, Lord John, and King John of Toom Tabard
And whatever of your bounty hanged in my scabbard
I cast it aside for the Mulvanine blackguard
To play prophylactics. If son of mine bear
A thread of the blood makes him Balliol’s heir

God burn out his breath
Or the devil at best.
And the heavens bless Rebecca Marsh and the rest."

Independent

Then could they ever count you quite like that?
I’ve looked at paved out pansies on the lawns,
All college coloured, like locked ranks of pawns,
And known you, in absentia, dodged the stat -
Think of the place five years ago. They sat
After their mornings chasing other yawns,
A different line of broken legs and Seans
From us and ours, more needed where we’re at.
Back then the banks were cropped about in red,
We would’ve turned up if we had been there.
And now we are, we can’t much care to play -
Well, bear well as you can, this day in May
Before the fortnight’s less than up; repair
The things you have to learn or else to shed.
Inside another head
More things are visible than were before,
The background scene will lift on what I saw
Outside the arching door.
Spoil away; you’re marked down to be chaste
Our ballot needs a salting and a baste.