Funeral Games*

Tinder, Bumble, Happn, Hinge:

I’m back dating the Lunatic Fringe.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Cunt:

Pick some boys, take a punt.

Baa baa black sheep 🐑,

I need to sleep.

Swiping: it becomes addictive –

Are they real, are they fictive.

Watermelon 🍉 in a bowl:

I know some chap won’t make me whole.

Distraction, redaction, I’m myself ,

Don’t wanna end up on the shelf.

I come bearing caffeinated gifts,

My mood it sometimes even lifts.

My hair falls out, I’ll wear a wig:

My hair used to be so big.

Racing, pacing, making thoughts:

Is this, is this, for what we fought

Two wars: the war to end all wars,

The first.

Nothing, nothing slakes my thirst

For new connection, real love

You cook and kill and eat the dove –

You roast the dove, consume her whole,

The olive branch burns in the flames,

You can’t believe you’re playing games,

You can’t accept it’s not the way –

You break their hearts ❣ 💓,

You make them pay –

Crawling on their knees for favours.

Oh look, oh look there’s Rod Laver,

Super Mac, the ice man Borg

Team Europe win, win, win it’s called.

Tennis is the cruelest sport:

Is this, is this for what they fought

The bloodiest wars in human times.

Dating boys is not the worst of crimes.

You WhatsApp, them those clueless dorks,

They cannot use their knives 🔪 and forks 🍴.

Sock hits a winner,

What’s for dinner.

They’re in red and we׳re in blue,

Stefanos then beats Taylor too.

Domi wins, so do Rog and Sascha,

They’re in red but we are flasher.

The world it turns

The fire it burns

The Amazon is still in flames,

Time now to play patriot games

Tennis now where once was war,

Sock socks the ball:

He wins in four.

Not four sets, but four it rhymes,

You pull the Empress card four times.

Four days will quickly steep themselves in night,

Four nights will quickly dream away the time;

And then the moon, 🌒 like to a silver bow, new-bent in heaven

Shall behold the night

Of our solemnities.

Moonology, astrology, zoology,

Philology, biology, cryptozoology,

The kraken wakes,

He threads across your skin:

Skin that has had cancer in,

Must be cut out again, again,

There are so many awful men.

There are so many wondrous beasts:

Phoenix, Roc and Thunderbird,

What d’you mean you haven’t heard

Of Chupacabras, Basilisk:

He turns you to stone with his eyes 👀.

Kelpie, Salamanda, Simurgh

Yes, yes he’s a giant bird 🦅

Leucrota now, then Minotaur:

Ariadne gives you the ball of string,

To find your way out of Minotaur’s maze:

You’re in there for days and days.

My love, our nuptial hour draws on apace,

To the tortoise not hare the race.

Minotaur dies and with him love

You mustn’t roast, tear and eat the dove.

*1981. By Mary Renault. Novel dealing with the aftermath of the death of Alexander the Great and the ensuing disintegration of his empire. The final book in her Alexander trilogy.