Kenidjack

I get by now, rolling cigarettes in the cold of the caravan, brewing tea over a pale blue flame, nervous of the farmer, ready to move, missing belief.

In another life, art school was over, punk was over, squatting was over, drugs were over. In vans, on foot, we moved through the interior, fingernails black crescents, a drunken crusade: Land's End, trying to jump from the dying soil.

Holy John was waiting like a father, arms open, ready.

He told us of a blazing city, Lyonesse, rising from the sea, burning through cold downy mist; the return of the Golden mother, the real Britannia, a world turned upside down.

We listened. Spirit, discipline, a new and just land, free love. Drunk in the night, alone at dawn, grass and briars in our hair, we convinced ourselves with hot whispers.

We built huts, a ring of stones, tarpaulin bent over sticks for a roof, waiting in the quarry, chopping sticks and bringing water, watching the sea, ready for a new England, dreaming of changing the tide of history.

In service stations and comfortable towns, no plague or famine happened.

The day came and went.

I still need it to mean something.

Kenidjack: http://tinyurl.com/reg6x