Sunday 27 December 2015

After the flood Warning.

The dining chairs have made a barricade,
So I can't get at my underwear.
They're keeping out of imagined water,
Are huddled by the chest close by my bed,
Like children hanging round in gangs.


Instead of paddling
They're up by the arcade.
And one at least is standing on its head.


They're keeping out of the deluge, 
Out of the fictional flood,
Yet they seem quite jolly.
There's no sense of gloom,
As they guard their mahogany legs 
From the silt and sewage and mud,
And make conversation with dispossessed drawers,
Stacked up at random, chaotically,
When they're normally always neat.


And some of the drawers are quite rude
As they panic about carcasses,
Left where
The waters might lap hypnotically
Round their bare
And bandy Queen Anne or cabriole,
Chinese Chippendale,
Fluted or reeded stands,
Causing them to fall,
Where their polish might turn pale,
Or grow quite white from the dregs
Of the river washed into the room,
Or be scratched by abrasive sands,
Or blackened with oil or tar.


And the sideboards discuss the benefits,
If any at all,
At such times as these are,
of feet
Which are 'spade.'
But who knows what they conclude?


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