St Ives

As I was walking to St Ives...

...I met two young fellows testing knives

on the outsides of their thighs

and the insides of their wrists.

 

...I met a pair of zombies

clocking off at the end of their shifts

down the mines of copper and tin.

 

...I beheld the two-backed beast of Bodmin.

 

...I met a beached Rick Stein

making love to a bevvy

of underwhelmed pilchards.

 

...I escaped the fevered clutches

of a bearded Cornish hag,

forlornly borne upon the breeze

like an embalmed carrier bag.

 

...I met a hermit in a cave

trying to hide his pasty face

from the shortcrust-seeking beaks of gulls.

 

...I walked past bakeries filled with saffron buns

bigger and brighter than the Cornish sun.

 

...I passed Ross Poldark sat on a bench

clotted cream teasing

a besotted young wench.

 

Journey's end,

I arrived in St Ives.

I drank up my zider.

Night fell like a stone

or a man pitching down a flight of steps.

I decided to switch to beer.

 

 

As I was leaving old St Ives...

 

...I went to Barnoon cemetery,

overlooking Porthmeor.

I saw the ghost of Alfred Wallis

painting seascapes on pizza boxes.

 

B.R. 14/09/2014

 

 

‘The Hold House Port Mear Square Island Port Mear Beach’

by Alfred Wallis ?c.1932