I paced silently in the useless landscape, <br />Where a white solo horse, <br />matured and immured in an Arabian souk, <br />is frantic and tantalisingly rampant. <br /> <br />The glistening chandeliers hung from the clouds, <br />Impartially, <br />And the sparkling immobile glass droplets, <br />rest heavy in the fog. <br /> <br />While the driving wind blew from the east in the night, <br />The dark satanic mills mashed bird and beasts alike. <br />Spinning insanely faster, <br />the incandescent glowing light bulbs, <br />burst with violent verdant black tulips. <br /> <br />With a hearty shout and a heavy heart the unlawful daughter, <br />hobbled delicately, <br />tidily plastering the Eskimo's chilblain with mustard. <br />The leather of her red shoes grew bulbous bunions in sympathy, <br />While the radio played Waltzing Matilda. <br /> <br />We follow the drums and the drums say die. <br />The flag's in rags, the dogs are dead, <br />Freezing in the burning snow, <br />Carving and sobbing swathes through drifts, <br />Leaving a plague of bile and spit. <br /> <br />I carved and constructed a blameless doll, <br />Who was gallant and honest to a fault but without a brain. <br />And the gentleman concurred that the topsy-turvy world, <br />Leaves our thin souls unnerved, <br />And our mouldy agnostic waterproof jackets green with envy. <br /> <br />The father said elephants with custard, <br />And we all fell in brotherly adoration into the greasy pudding. <br />The festering jelly was most abusive and pounced, <br />On the bloated paper Mache'Tintoretto painting, <br />pasting all parts into a corner, <br />with no escape. <br /> <br />How can we, without love and hope, <br />Pay the boatman for a journey to the unknown, <br />Without let or hindrance? <br />Tell us so we shall know. <br />Without prevarication.<br /><br />Thomas Henry Stephens<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/silent-landscape/
