Couch grass is crushed beneath coolie boxes
brimming with chicken, olives, champagne.
We feast in memory of Wenceslas
four parts of a thousand primed to sing
while wind reverbs in the sound system & spatters
candles into blackness. Our voices weirdly
double back as gust-shredded melodies.
A soprano offers 'Joy to the World';
her sweetness belies the devil's tri-tone
& pacts forged in an underworld of lives
reduced to slabs of years. We pick a way out
before massed choirs garble a final carol.
Couch grass springs unbowed
& resilient imprints cling like shadows
to the salved exiting a sandstone hell.