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Anti-Rain Charm For The Island

Let the winter it drenched be redacted, forgotten,
    No more sandbags, or gasbags in photo-op poses;
Let no gutters be gorged, let no soffits go rotten,
    Let no downpours rip petals off poppies and roses.

Let no soakings doom gardens to weeds’ hypertrophia
    As the clouds keep the atmosphere dank and crepuscular
Making rain-sodden hollyhock, lupin, kniphofia,
    Really moist and attractive to all things molluscular.

Let no drowned island towns turn to parody-Venices
    And sites long submerged by a liquid Vesuvius;
Let the summer be free of all water-linked menaces
    Like the sewage that spills through excess of the pluvious.

Let some mitred Archbishop, some modern-day Druid,
    Prepare sky-clearing rites for a national assembly
If there’s need to control any fast-falling fluid
    Before genuine dives please the public at Wembley!


Jerome Betts


If you have any comments on this poem, Jerome Betts would be pleased to hear from you.

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