Glastonbury Fayre (1971)

the driver of the leather-interior

clapped-out Hillman Hunter

reeking of Player's Navy Cut

and Wright's Coal Tar

dropped me off 

somewhere in Wiltshire

 

I slept in a bus shelter -

 

Kendal Mint Cake for breakfast

with a doorstep-pirated

pint of gold top

 

a postie’s Pashley leaned

unlocked against a wall,

I rattled it down timeless lanes

to the off-map, small-time, festival

promising big-name artists 

'yet to be arranged'

 

the scene was thick

with freaks and weed...

and a pyramid

 

women dancing naked,

nude men too,

but love-sticks

waving tall and free

do bugger all for me

 

a red-haired spectral,

Moonchild from Ebbw Vale

cwtched me tight,

told me I was god,

I was beautiful,

(mozzies, wasps, and hoverflies too)

 

she made necklets of daisies,

cooked vegetable fricassee

then passed a cup of goat milk tea

laced, she said, with L.S.D. –

 

it worked for her but not for me -

instead I sat for hours

staring into campfire flames

marvelling at colours

no man had seen before

and learning,

from the lips of angels,

lost truths of existence,

one I recall -

death is not real

 

Moonchild zipped our doss bags

into a double –

we slept together

cuddling strictly platonically

 

a fond week  - days, nights,

of incense, hashish

and innocence

 

I wonder if she outgrew

Gandalf and patchouli,

mushrooms, magick

and the Maharaji,

becoming another female stranger -

parish councillor? Madam Mayor?

lay preacher at a Minster?

 

the festival has turned to

brown-nose hospitality,

tacky pop-star millionaires

tackier billionaires -

douche bags extraordinaire

 

circling the tents

in my Cessna chopper

a faded ‘Free Love’ banner

waved tall and proud

above the dome of my

shrine-white pristine yurt,

centre of the hi-security

double ring-fence

‘A list’ compound

 

I sucked in my gut

to buckle up

brand new shrink-wrapped

designer distressed jeans,

clipped in my real hair

ponytail extension,

 

ready to go on

and headline the show.