Mercury with an Elvis Lip

(i)

 

Mercury: why do you fly above me ?

Is there some luck you wish to drop ?

Is there a message you want to tell ?

Or are you simply guiding my lost soul,

sprinkling your culture of guilt,

turning my misfortune into a virtue ?

 

I can see you looking down at me

as if staring at a soufflé of fishes;

trickster and thief that you are

hopelessly longing for Rosmerta’s kiss.

 

Mercury, please do me a favour - stop

chucking handfuls of dust into my bucket.

You’re nothing but a god of malodorous bad weather.

(You didn’t know ? Well, well, well.

Sorry to break such uncomfortable news.

Perhaps Apollo was pissed and forgot to tell you.)

 

 

 

(ii)

 

Everything runs from the shipwreck of old age

even the birds in the fields and the lilies in the air.

Like a tortoise hunts fleas, like a rooster kills time

the distinction between appearance and reality

banishes life and its fading adventure.

 

So, I did the right thing; invested in a winged hat.

Amongst the clouds I feel at home and,

unsurprisingly, not at home. (Am I supposed to

know about all these boundaries ? Why didn’t anybody teach me ?)

 

Look – I can see Mercury, leading his gang to the underworld

singing a Latinised version of Are You Lonesome Tonight.

 

 

 

 

(iii)

 

Time flies – you can’t outrun it.

Elvis tried but he hit a toilet wall.

On the day he died I was on a camping trip

with someone I shouldn’t have fallen in love with.

The radio played Love Me Tender over and over and over;

middle-aged campers lay down their tent pegs

   and began to cry.

I was seventeen. Respect wasn’t part of my vocabulary.

Had somebody asked, I’d have told them:

‘Actually, I prefer The Buzzcocks.’

 

 

 

 

(iv)

 

All that stuff about Elvis being a junkie

eating until his heart explodes

standing with Nixon as the Seventh bombed Hanoi

shooting his TV, dating a 14 year old girl…

 

He was a good American boy, Elvis, even if he did squeeze off

one-too-many occasional rounds with his .22 calibre gun.

Does Mercury like him ? I’m afraid I don’t know. The only time I liked Elvis

was when he did that thing with his lip: Uh-huh, uh-huh; uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

 

Just a regular boy from Tupelo,

swinging his pelvis, liberating the id.

Now the world is swamped with cut-price hand-me-downs:

Alien Elvis; Red-neck Elvis; a rockin’ Sikh Elvis named

   Peter Singh.

 

It’s as if Elvis is flying beside me, cheeseburger in hand

wearing his sparkly jumpsuit (you know the one, with an elevated collar.)

At this time in my life I’m not sure I want reminding

of when I sat alone in my tent, aged seventeen,

 

still madly in love with someone I shouldn’t have fallen in love with,

singing: One for the money,  two for the winged sandals,

three for the lonely travellers

making their way to Heartbreak Hotel.