- performance piece -

 

The driver of a leather upholstered

Hillman Hunter drop head saloon

Reeking of Capstan full strength

And Lifebuoy soap

Dropped me off outside Devizes.

 

I prised open a door

To get out of the rain

Unrolling my doss bag

On a scout hut floor.

 

I crept out early

While the village slept

Washing down a Kendal Mint Cake bar

With a pint of gold top

Pirated from some rich bugger’s door.

 

A postman’s bike rested neglected,

Abandoned looking, against a wall.

I rescued it quick and

Rattled deserted lanes

To the off map,

Small time festival.

 

No big deal.

Freaks knocking up a pyramid.

Blowin' dope, dropping acid,

Chillin’ out.

 

“Outta sight.”

 

There would be music,

It was claimed,

From big name bands '

Yet to be arranged'.

 

I lurked behind a bush

Savouring an alluring tableau.

Women bathing naked in a lake –

You don’t get that in Ponders End.

 

Men were prancing there too

But love sticks waving tall and free

And open air scrotes?

Never do anything for me.

 

A red haired spectral cwtched me,

She was up from Ebbw Vale

Whispering I was beautiful,

So were mosquitoes and hover flies too.

 

She cooked organic white bean chilli

Washed down with dandelion tea

She said was laced with L.S.D.

 

I gulped it readily –

But don’t think it really

Worked for me.

 

Instead I sat for hours

Staring into camp fire flames

Seeing colours that never existed

And learning an unrepeatable

Unspeakable truth about 'reality'.

 

My out of body soul,

Roaming the astral sphere

Embraced a ‘weekend’ hippy,

Barry from Ponders End.

He vanished - primal screaming

Through a field of borage

Till swallowed by the darkness

Beyond the trees.

 

My festival romance...

A tripping premmie, 

Moonchild, from Rugby.

She made us necklets of daisies.

We zipped our sleeping bags

Into a double - laying together…

Strictly platonically.

 

A fond remembered week,

Incense and innocence.

 

I guess Moonchild outgrew

Gandalf  and patchouli,

Magick and the Maharaji,

Turning into a grown up female stranger.

 

A parish councillor?

Lay preacher at a Minster

Madam Mayor? A female prelate?

Bet your life she’s a magistrate.

 

Nowadays, Glasto is corporate hospitality,

Fawning over billionaires

Tacky popsters

And B list ‘douche bags extraordinaire’.

 

Hovering above the tent-city

In my brand new Cessna chopper

My co-pilot pointed out

The 'Free Love' pennant

Waving tall and proud

Above my shrine-white pristine yurt

That filled the centre ground

Of the hi-security ring fenced

V.I.P compound.

 

As the copter blades spun

I attached my real hair

Pony tail extension,

Sucked in my gut to buckle up

My brand new shrink wrapped

Broken zip

Designer distressed jeans.

 

Waiting my moment

To headline the show.