Lord Backsivore’s Letter #a poem

Note: Backsivore, or Backsie Fore, is a word (or phrase) from the Devon dialect. It means back-to-front.

The sun shines bright with a matt-black glow
each late-night morning in Backsivore.
While stars ask each other which way to go,
thrilled nihilists speak of a meaningful core

Babies rise late to starve screaming mothers
before peeling toast from their jam.
The vegans grab guns and hunt for  plump plovers
while Beefeaters gobble up ham,

and the man in the moon puts on her dress
to strum on an an unstrung guitar,
and the song unsung is an ungarbled mess
about unspoken secrets repeated afar.

In the deep-forest city of Backsivore,
each week ends before it begins,
months are short and years are shorter
and decades are the length of two pins.

Centuries remain an untrodden track,
since there’s no known way to measure
the length of elastic componants so slack,
so none of the sums add together.

In Backsivore the losers win prizes,
and petite women wear a large sack
while L and XL are the smallest of sizes,
and a shirt buttons up at the back.

Every brave truth is a cowardly lie
and all bitter lies are sweet facts.
The curtain twitcher is no kind of spy
and the sadists disperse kindly acts.

I’m quite convinced that I’d never would guess
that I’ve said too much, and much less is more,
I hope this is useful, no more and no less…
Coldest Regards
from Lord Backsivore.

©Jane Paterson Basil

Mumbling Sheep

At the start of the end of the heady hippie days
I briefly dipped my toes in the sinking hippie ways.
I floated in long dresses and I jingled as I walked,
I used the hippie lingo every time I talked.
I tried smoking cannabis, but not for very long;
it took all my sense away and made me feel wrong.

I never fancied LSD – I liked to see the world
in its organic gorgeousness, not twisted and unfurled.
I disagreed with half the things the lippy hippies said;
they thought they were original, but their minds half dead.
They told me I was brainwashed because my ideas
were far too well-considered for their dippy hippie ears.

They said that they were breaking out of mediocrity,
they said their way of life was a better way to be,
they said they wanted peace and an end to all the killing,
but when I asked for action, few of them were willing.
They spoke of demonstrations, but they always missed the train,
or they couldn’t be bothered, or they feared that it might rain.

I was often irritated by their inconsistency;
the only thing they stood up for was brewing cups of tea.
Most of them were stoned from smoking Mary Jane,
a few of them were tripping, and one had gone insane
from swallowing blues, snorting speed and smoking weed —
to put it very bluntly, they had all gone to seed.

It’s true that their culture had seen some better days,
but I met a lot of mumbling sheep, slumped in a fuzzy haze;
while I was a thinker, and I let my thoughts run free,
they were more concerned with the psychedelic creed.
They agreed with whatever concepts stood at odds
with all the world’s hard working, deep thinking bods.

It was interesting at first, and fun for a bit,
but it wasn’t very long before I had to admit
I didn’t fit in with my drug-loving friends
who spoke of new beginnings, but never tied up ends.
I looked like a hippie, but I felt no passion
for the pseudo hippiedom in local fashion.

Written for Reena’s Exploration Challenge #Week 10.

©Jane Paterson Basil