Nightmares in the abbey

There is a green hill not too far

Around its girth an age old hedge

Obscures the diesel chug of a passing car

Marble & Strawberry hills that aren’t

Though unchanged since Dickens & Pope -

Only the flight path betrays the rope

That binds us to contemporanea

Unchanged ancient marshy grasses through which adders slither...

To rue an age of poorer sanitation

Belies the spoiled and deadly degradation

Of a current plumbed-in time that leaves the weak to wither

Lascars in Limehouse, China boys with the blues

Now the future of futures holds time to lose

Rustication holds a crooked and stout supporting arm

To we who love peacocks on gothic land or country farm

There is a green hill not so close

Where romantics retreat to inhale

Their holy smoke dispensed in former dose

Primroses in repose, in gentle tranquil mood:

In the valley of nepenthe lies quietude...