Two Poems

Cakes and Ale

This bit again. You know it.
It's the sequence in the bar
on an outer planet. You
see piecemeal through the ruddy
strobes and smoke. You must be by
the door, and going through the
motions, brushing off the rain.
Their backs are to you. Hunchbacks.
Some of them wear metal. Fanged
pauldrons, bizarre combs frizz up

against the strip light further
in. Barbarians. Or a
culture in elaborate
decline. Flagrant. Capricious.
You ought to recognise which
...