Lord Emsworth leaves Blandings for London
And the engine chokes to life
A loud vile cry declares departure
And the bus heads westwards
From the window, familiar city landscapes
Fibre-glass towers and screaming billboards
Turn into fields of paddy and sugarcane
In Paris, Elise finds love.
The engine's humming lulls me to a dream-enriched sleep
That angry honks and high-beams shatter easily.
Arezki is arrested, Elise ridiculed.
Outside, a child in an over-sized shirt
That has safety-pins filling in for buttons chases hens.
A country is partitioned, an exodus follows
Men of steel watch madness make butchers of others
And I dream of angry assasins.
The highway is clear and the bus gains momentum,
Beyond the lake, lights from the suburban porches announce the destination's approach.
A pig turns dictator and I step out to Terra Firma and reality
From that manic trance of confused reality, fiction and dreams
That a paper-back and a window seat evoke.
