Ancient Ways
Our ashen marriages
are trace-cartography
on our drunken maps
of tolls – drips of wine
circle our old haunts/
Merlots are our ink in
marking our routes/ I
track my tired footfall
on gradients – we see
tumuli – each labelled
in gothic font – a man
stood there – a digger
with flints to scrape &
form his remembered
monument/ No recall
of this evening will be
left – so I vomit hasty
poetry – I traduce fact
& delineate spillages –
trippers can sidestep
our cists/ We’re not a
sober triumvirate – my
sips enervated [but for
for gritted sediments]/
My tap spits as red ink
circulates & remnants
are washed off/ Come
morning & three stains
will have dried [rubbed
at drips to scour clean]
& our maps will be set
aside [out-of-date] – no
worth left – lost routes
to diggings in Wessex
& nothing more to see