poem

Jamie McKendrick King Billy’s Nemesis

Mouldywarp, thrower of dirt,

has tripped the horse called Sorrel

and broken the royal collarbone and killed

the King of England.

Though Jacobites toasted the little gentleman

in the black velvet waistcoat,

if push came to shove he was always

more of a Republican

and apart from a walk-on role

as the ghost of King Hamlet

till then he’d rarely shown

much passion for politics.

Three hundred years he’s laid low,

airing the earth and stocking his larder

with shelf-fulls of worms,

live worms as it happens.

But today he broached the deep snow

and left one flaw in the perfect

field of white – black earth

at its core and an oval

aureole of cindery grey

with an equal mix of snow and soil.

Looks like a black wig

riding a white steed.

Now he’s backed up down into the dark,

same old mole, with a bow and a scrape

or was that a wave

from his shovel-shaped mitt?