Poetry

Pantoum on Two Rhymes

John Whitworth

The blood in my veins is the blood of kings.
If we all had our rights I’d be Duke of Earl
With a cut-glass voice and a bat of wings
So why did I marry a working girl?

If we all had our rights I’d be Duke of Earl.
I’d live on a yacht with a million things.
So why did I marry a working girl?
You push the buttons, you pull the strings,

You live on a yacht with a million things,
With a coat to trail and a flag to furl.
You push the buttons and pull the strings.
For a silver spoon and a golden curl,

A coat to trail and a flag to furl,
A blazon of arms and a clutch of rings,
A silver spoon and a golden curl,
You listen to money, how money sings

Of a blazon of arms and a clutch of rings,
A father of lies and a mother of pearl.
You listen to money, how money sings.
Of a baron of beef and a heart to hurl.

A father of lies and a mother of pearl,
With a hundred pipers for reels and flings,
A baron of beef and a heart to hurl,
A drinkard blinkered who stinks and stings.

With a hundred pipers for reels and flings,
The lilt of the kilt and the pipes to skirl,
A drinkard blinkered who stinks and stings.
With a sword to swagger, a stick to twirl

And the lilt of the kilt and the pipes to skirl
A cut-glass voice and a bat of wings.
A sword to swagger, a stick to twirl,
The blood in my veins is the blood of kings,

Of kings, of kings, of kings…

John Whitworth