We fight each other for the deckchairs on our modern Hindenburg.
We fly high above the London Eye. We think we are the world.
Our airship is bound for a Camelot we pretend and hope is real.
Lightning strikes. Our gondola burns. Everything goes bright. Then still.

They named their daughter Heartfelt but they spelt
it ‘hert veld’ which I think means ‘field of deer’.
‘Or for deer, dear,’ says Hertveld. Hail stones pelt
the old Humber bonnet that roofs our shelter here
in post-brexit England. I think I felt
a rat brush by my ankle. If so we are near
to catching or being breakfast. We’re OK.
No more EU to plague us, and no UK.

When Goliath went to heaven was it the one
that welcomed David? Theologians split
along -isms schisms. What they call theories run
aground on shoals of logic. Priests refit
the flotsam into dogmas angels shun
but people love because it lets them hit
each other, each one sure Divinity
likes her or him alone, and no one born B.C.

It was time for some jollity
He squirted cognac in our tea
And said nothing cheers one up
Like alcohol in a stirrup cup

That’s like rhyming while the empire burns
Or playing bowls among the urns
Containing ashes of the great
Who brought us to our current state

A short term thrill that makes us ill
But we don’t think at first it will
We toast ourselves and try to smile
It always works a little while

‘I’ll be back at five-thirty to complain about being left out,’
she said to the angels, the lesser ones, watching a game
with real Christians and Tigers. One big cat had a pope in its mouth
while converts with halberds attempted to make the beast lame.
The angels gasped when a rank god with rabies approached from the south
and they raced to be first to mark up their screens with his name.
She, being a goddess herself, wanted live action more
so she shattered their tablets and shot a bolt closing the door.