HELTER SKELTER

Shuffling the rim of the endless shore,

The holiday fun already a bore,

What are we going to do today

To fritter our empty lives away?

Here is a thrill you might enjoy,

A petulant giant's twisted toy.

They clamp you tightly on a rack

To see how soon your joints will crack;

And swing you up against the sky,

A most traditional way to die.

Horizons tilt, the clouds drop down,

And overhead is the seething town.

(But in the iron filigree something grates -

Or is it a shift of tectonic plates?)

Far off in the alien world below

Oblivious mannikins come and go:

On damp flat sands the children score

Trenches of a forgotten war;

A naked girl on a cockle shell

Drifts to the beach with the onshore swell;

And a soaring boy who had no care

Falls through the unsupportive air.

(A rivet shifts in a rusting girder.

Manslaughter is it - or is it murder?)

Over the top in the scything wind -

Oh, tell me, brother, have you sinned?

Then who is that hoodie by your side

Rapt in his bone-white-knuckle ride?

Hold on to your hat, your hair, your head.

Have fun. Have fun.

You're a long time dead.

Frederick