Ode to the English

We have an entire language
at our command,
such heights of precision
and specificity

and yet we blather and blunder
and blandish with bland
the towers of language that people
our cities:

We cloud them with 'dooberidoos',
'whatjumacallits' and 'whatsits',
replace exactitude with 'thing',
'thingymabob' and 'dohick'.

We are known to be charming,
polite and enquiring,
but behind the disarming
we are fearful, mystified little shirelings.

We are tied up in history
like flies in a web,
the future a lame mare
with one crippled leg.

We stumble into eternity
with a mouthful of teeth,
spitting and seething,
with arms outreached.

Oh, God or Queen or Country,
save us from ourselves!
We're beery, lairy - O Blighty!
What's becoming of your once mighty realm?

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time,
I had a muse,
a sort of female Endymion,
an Arcadian shepherdess.

But I tore myself
from that world
and all its ambrosia
of illusion.

Now I've got the real thing:
not the sort of thing
that's words
clothed in flesh,
brought into a world of sorts
by a wordsmith's brush,

but a thing
entirely woman,
entirely human,
who seethes with anger,
quivers at my touch.