Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers:
St. George's Hill in forty nine, the time
Of Charles's chopping block, we Diggers come
...
Where there was fear and a handful of must
Where there was discord, a footfall of dust
Where there was strife and its cries of despair
There was the Thatch with its bones in its lair
...
Dusk in Canton. An unctuous rain in smears
Obscures the bustle. Under plastic sheets
The fat-wrapped grills are smoking. 'Pork and beers! '
For dripping patrons. Up from running streets
...
But Kora sat unmoving, in great magic.
The walls, her home, faded about her. Warmth
went; all alone and on a freezing plain,
dressed in a tunic, sharp knife in her belt,
...
For Joan Margarit
First movement: Larghissimo con moto
...
“Je suis desja d’amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée…”
In olden days the Roman maids
...
Gather round ye English folk
Listen to my tale true
You will shiver, in sweat you'll soak
At the ballad of NodoleView
...
for KM
The Wanderer leaves them behind
“Unkind memories, you and I
...
The fat pudendum is offended
And urges people to support
His right to write his jokes so splendid
Without intemperate retort
...
A rhyme is when you hear a sound n build a meaning round)
360
Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers:
St. George's Hill in forty nine, the time
Of Charles's chopping block, we Diggers come
Reclaiming earth by B*stard taken, all
Those centuries before. But Fairfax cried
'Enough of revolution, turn again
Your commune to its owners, lords of land'
Inclosure, soccage, rent or fee for land
Allodial folcland filched, until the time
When hateful Norman yoke shall pass again
And common people make our commons come
The wheel'll turn, we underlings decried
Will rise, return from tenebrous enthrall
People of England, men and women all
Denied our just inheritance of land
The factory sprawled, the slum, where children cried
Among the latifundia. It's time
To right this wrong. We Diggers have become
The prophets circular, renewed again
Monastic gardens rooted up - a gain
For Mortmain's grubbing hands that squirm, appall
With shiftless shapings. B*stard broods that come
As droning parasites on apples land
And worm armigeral. But now their time
Is up. This future we have seen and scried
In France's trenches rifled fodder cried
Were culled to stop the commons' climb again
Were culled to stop the commons. Killing time
While clutching timber stocks cut down from all
The orchards. Vanished is the orchard land
And coreless fruits from supermarkets come
In plastic shrouds. Let England now become
The everlasting garden we have cried
for. We shall share the russet-honey land
We'll make the world a peaceful place again
As Eden must have been before the Fall
With humming bees among the scented thyme
Envoi
Our Sestina has come to its close, and again
Our old voices have cried. We have sung for you all
To remake your own land. For the people! It's time!