As Seen from the Pike
Jude Cowan Montague
A true and faigh collegiate man
Heyrick lost in the resurrection
rose out of the book of accounts
to dominate Agnes’s field, over there.
The guns or gun, for reet
there was only one assigned
to Shoodehill, the tenants pinched
to make their own retreat
and did not conduct themselves
with seasonableness / vigour.
No pay for two journeys led to
the capture of the kingdom.
The army resolved to Ormskirk
& this was the end
of the First Civil War.
We bought a stuttery mini
and flipping over to purple gobbin
we went sci-fi slow passed the glass
tower and up to the sunset
to watch from the Turton peaceway.
It was here, perhaps that the flowers
of Bolton had been chawve
during cross-country violence,
a controversial flight.
From here we could see
forever, like floating,
there’s no way I’m asking Mary,
if she was at Blackpool this morning
& this was the end
of the Second Civil War.
From here to the man
frying our feline influence,
exploding their coffins we looked
to Affetside, where 2,000
jobs have been axed already
outside the Olde Man and Scythe
fagged in crazy wandering hair
that appeared in a lefty ghost story
with a theatrical twist.
Nobody wanted me here,
so time I left with my stomach.
Wanderers are looking not for aspidistras
but for slinky mobiles.
& that was the end
of the Third Civil War.
Jude Cowan Montague worked for Reuters Television Archive for ten years. Her album The Leidenfrost Effect (Folkwit Records, 2015) reimagines quirky stories from the Reuters Life! feed. She produces The News Agents on Resonance 104.4 FM. Her most recent book is The Originals (Hesterglock Press, 2017).
