HIGH PRIEST PROFESSOR

My computer has been playing up so no new posts for two weeks. 
Plus I was at 2000 Trees Festival last weekend previewing my new collection All Yesterday's Tomorrows. Thanks to Rob and Andy for inviting us for the fifth year in a row. Trees is a special festival. I would also like to thank Gram and Emily for joining me and reading such wondrous poetry.

The Secret Poets offered valuable feedback on this post's poem. Consequently I have rewritten the third stanza. The general feeling was that in its original form the third stanza did not catch the voice of the mummy as pithily as the preceding ones did. You can read the original draft here. 

The Unwrapping Party

When I lay there,

having my brain extracted through my nose,

while my guts were pulled out by the handful

and dumped into the jars at my feet,

I did not foresee that my sleep would be disturbed

by anyone less than a God.

I could even put up with the French interrupting my twilight,

but to be labelled a minor figure,

in the political structure of the Lower Kingdom,

while accurate, could have been said with more respect.

This social event makes no pretence at science,

which has come to replace religion for these people,

it is simply a sideshow.

How the good matrons of Paris gasp in awe

as their high priest professor holds aloft each wrapping

as if he was revealing universal truths.

Such enlightenment is beyond the banality of his words,

which reveal more of his time than mine.

Then I will lie under glass, naked,

having seen too much,

and in my second cycle of waiting

be ignored by the passers-by.

I have been listening to Lal and Mike Waterson recently and here is Bright Phoebus. I may have posted this before, but it's such a great song.

Until next time.