It was ninety eight past midnight

on a shining moonless night

as I walked with flaming fagots

‘mongst the clouded dunes so bright

astride a beetled rhino

in equestrian delight

a band  of jammied pixies

sat and laughed with all their might

 

back a ways a distance

a herd of horn billed bats

thundered masticating

the thrills of gin filled rats

then sunken in delirium

began retching in their hats

to the rhyme and rhythm

of their serpentine plaits

 

they marched the pillowed ruins

of mindless whispered drivel 

then lay their baffled heads

all a blubber all a snivel

and swimming through dreams

of looped and woven gravel

‘twas certain they’d pass out

by the weighted gypsum gavel

 

upon the wallowing tepid sea

I spied a flag infested boat

its’ passengers of patriots

sinking deeper cannot float

while here upon my foreign shore

the sands did shift and tote

the wily wistful whales song

they had learned by rote

 

and ever trundling forward

through nights of scattered fate

I tripped across a thousand towns

in every mental state

but never saw the Siren

as she sat upon her gate

cloaked in shades of ebony

for the hour it was late 

 

far off in the distance

strode the galvanised sun

whispering horizons

with his magic ray gun

stumbling ‘cross the canyon

the night was on the run

fearing vast exposure

in the light that he must shun

 

ah, the pixies have returned

with greetings of the day

and perch me on the Rhino

and send me on my way

they never even told me

the fee that I must pay

but soon enough I did find out

as my shattered brain did bray

 

I stumbled towards the kitchen

slippers slapping ‘cross the tiles

while the walls breathed eternities

for a thousand weary miles

my sense of smell is witness 

to the fragrant kitchen vials

god bless the timely quickening

0f the coffee that beguiles