King For A Day Poem by Len Webster

They stripped me down beyond bare essentials -
Even now I can't tell the new from the old -

Dressed me in the finest green and black livery
As if for a second coronation.

Their hands could be clumsy but they had iron will.
Cabbing it. Stoking the fire, making me strong.

Sending the heat through the ageing frame,
Trying to re-create their image of my image.

Unaware of the fireman doing his duty,
Unaware of the fierceness burning within me,

Children cried loudly and giggled to see me,
Briefly stood back, unafraid of the journey.

Then, to find the best seats they plunged
Into the carriages hooked firmly behind.

All dressed up in regal splendour, ready to pull,
With fire in my belly, steam hisses around me.
Mistily encircled with the grandeur of greatness,
The pistons begin. Slowly. Painfully. Surely.