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POEM OF THE WEEK #22

John Constable

Playwright and performance poet John Constable is best known as author of The Southwark Mysteries, a cycle of modern mystery plays, ostensibly channelled through the spirit of a medieval Bankside whore, licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to ply her trade within The Liberty of the Clink. Based on the history and legends of the ancient borough, these visions were performed at the Southwark Cathedral and Shakespeare's Globe in 2000. His other stage works include The False Hairpiece and Tulip Futures and for the David Glass Ensemble he adapted Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast and Paul Theroux's The Mosquito Coast. In 2003 he issued a CD of his shamanic poems, songs, and raps, also under the title The Southwark Mysteries.

House of The Snake

I have slept in rooms where men stir in the shadows,
And fitfully sigh as if fighting to wake,
Where it takes more than a plaster St Patrick
To hallow the souls in the House of The Snake.

It takes more than Faith and Moral Virtue.
The Doorman won't buy it. He can sniff out a fake.
When the lights go out and your demons desert you,
You're alone with your conscience in the House of The Snake.

You're alone with your God
In the House of The Snake.

It takes Tough Love in a town with no pity.
For the heart to open, it first has to break.
Where Beauty is Truth, but the Truth ain't so pretty
When push comes to shove in the House of The Snake.

When they let out the Dove
In the House of The Snake.

Yet some of us live here. We feel more at home than
In the House of the Righteous by the Pestilent Lake.
Here with the Sons and the Daughters of Eve
Come to heal and be healed in the House of The Snake.

All will be revealed
In the House of The Snake.

© John Constable >><< Crow

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