On St Cecilia’s Day they change the tunes
Pumped into the waiting rooms
Of Purgatory
Where Aldous Huxley, C.S. Lewis and
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Are sat side by side
United in their date of death. Each tics
An instant as the music
Stops, and then plays on.
Lewis chews his lower lip, still rattled
By Eternity’s delays
Granting Salvation
Gnawed by spasms of unclear remorse
After a wingless angel
Showed him his chair and
Said “It’s just a thing with ‘The Last Battle’.
No need for you to worry,
I’m sure. Please wait here.”
Jack Kennedy pays him no attention
Continuing to toss nuts
Into the air and
Then try catching them in his skull’s chasm.
Huxley shudders, guessing it’s
An acid flashback.
Far below, Margaret Thatcher too
Observes the music changing.
That’s another year
Since she resigned and then started to die.
But there’s no time to ponder,
Pause and then reflect.
The fixed conditions of her damnation
Require that she dance tangos
For the Rest of Time
With A.E. Housman, across crusty floors
Of their designated pit
In Hell, reserved for
Those Cursed Souls Who Have Quite Fucked Up England
Infusing her with fatal
Enthusiasms,
Mawkish Deathcults, Tight-arsed Nature Worship
And Small Town Cold Hearts.
Their faces turned eternally away
From each other’s gaze, each hear
Through 4000 miles
Of clenching granite, England still whining
Above the noise of
Chainsaws play “A Walk In The Black Forest”
Over and over again
On St Cecilia’s Day.