Second Terminus Poem by Alexander Hawkins

There are legends of legionary squalid scoopers
fishing out dirty coppers from a silvery font
after an uncommunicative visit to the community centre,
where they draw the line between dole queue and pig trough.

If you ever want to have a decent chance at that election
please work hard on that frustrated inflection.
You should ditch that funny little pickelhaube
And hurry up and find all your old deutschmarks.

Dance in idolship under brown candelabra,
Squeeze a free drink out of barman at the hotel bar.

The silvery font is spilling out into a babyfood marsh
after a phenomenal performance from a phoney practitioner
who foretold that the hangover of excess is excessively harsh.
Everyone was distracted by the ritual of the collared dove,

whilst we pre-ordered a preordained parishional prime minister
to take part in a matter of push and shove,
involving more pushing than shoving
but strictly no loving - no consequence or thought of it.