and some of them kneeling and lapping the water

like dogs.

And those that had sunk to their knees, gone down

on all fours, they were taken aside and tried

for stooping as low as a beast, but moreover

for kissing themselves on the lips in the lake.

They were all of them guilty and gathered together

and thumped. In the face. And those that were saved

were rewarded with mirrors and cups and praise

having made at the lake such a lasting impression.

Here endeth the first lesson.

THE TWO OF US

(after Laycock)

You sat sitting in your country seat

with maidens, servants waiting hand and foot.

You eating swan, crustaceans, starters, seconds, sweet.

You dressed for dinner, worsted, made to measure. Cut:

me darning socks, me lodging at the gate,

me stewing turnips, beet, one spud,

a badger bone. Turf squealing in the grate—

no coal, no wood.

No good. You in your splendour: leather,

rhinestone, ermine, snakeskin, satin, silk,

a felt hat finished with a dodo feather.

Someone’s seen you swimming lengths in gold-top milk.

Me parched, me in a donkey jacket,

brewing tea from sawdust mashed in cuckoo spit,

me waiting for the peaks to melt, the rain to racket

on the metal roof, the sky to split,

and you on-stream, piped-up, plugged-in, you worth a mint

and tighter than a turtle’s snatch.

Me making light of making do with peat and flint

for heat, a glow-worm for a reading lamp. No match.

The valleys where the game is, where the maize is—

yours. I’ve got this plot just six foot long

by three foot wide, for greens for now, for daisies

when I’m dead and gone.

You’ve got the lot, the full set:

chopper, Roller, horse-drawn carriage, microlight, skidoo,

a rosewood yacht, a private jet.

I’m all for saying that you’re fucking loaded, you.

And me, I clomp about on foot from field to street;

these clogs I’m shod with, held together now with segs

and fashioned for my father’s father’s father’s feet—

they’re on their last legs.

Some in the village reckon we’re alike, akin:

same neck, same chin. Up close that’s what they’ve found,

some sameness in the skin,

or else they’ve tapped me on the back and you’ve turned round.

Same seed, they say, same shoot,

like I’m some cutting taken from the tree,

like I’m some twig related to the root.

But I can’t see it, me.

So when it comes to nailing down the lid

if I were you I wouldn’t go with nothing.

Pick some goods and chattels, bits and bobs like Tutankhamen did,

and have them planted in the coffin.

Opera glasses, fob-watch, fountain pen, a case of fishing flies,

a silver name-tag necklace full-stopped with a precious stone,

a pair of one-pound coins to plug the eyes,

a credit card, a mobile phone,

some sentimental piece of earthenware,

a collar stud, a cufflink and a tiepin,

thirteen things to stand the wear and tear

of seasons underground, and I’ll take what I’m standing up in.