[from "Singapore"]
- for Fruitfly and Voo -
There’s a place that I know.
You can get there in your barrow.
Everyone is your fellow,
and sunsets go down slow.
We could go there today,
quiz them on the games they play.
For it’s warmer there
in the warmer air.
Let’s escape this terminal gray!
If you hear a great din
coming from a source that’s hidden,
that’s because you’ve been bidden
to reel your savings in,
buy a single-wheeled cart,
hit the trail and make your start.
Here’s the faded map
(skull-bones mark the trap).
Memorize it ere you depart!
Ringamore!
Have you journeyed there before?
Have you seen them roaming
under the gloaming
by the western shore?
They have no money
and they never ask for more.
Sought my Nana’s clovered dreams
on isles of Ringamore.
At the sound of the drum
you will know that you are welcome.
Foreign visitors seldom
are turned away, though some
never pass through the gate
as they can’t get through it straight –
can’t get through the slat,
being thick or fat.
Others come too soon or too late.
Enter when there’s a lull.
You will think it’s something final –
like a scratch on the vinyl.
There isn’t time to mull
when you hear the bell chime.
Greet the warders with a rhyme.
Answer questions asked,
offer them your flask.
Round the bend’s a ten-minute climb.
Ringamore!
Like imagined realms of yore
in which blacksmiths hammer
and jesters stammer,
damsels go before
and every apple’s
sweet like honey to the core.
Picked my Nana’s clovered dreams
in lovely Ringamore.
There the memories blur
as they color with the weather,
but you’re so much the better
so long as they endure.
Though our speeches will age,
they will decorate that page
we’ll be sure to make,
and the things we take
will adorn our grandchildren’s stage.
Under clouds as they whir
you will find a patch of clover.
Look it under and over.
Sit down and think of her.
She’s the reason I went,
why I posted there my tent,
hung inside the poem
that became my home
as the stars peered down through the vent.
Ringamore!
Yes, the beast of time will roar.
Take along in binders
gilded reminders
of what came before.
What’s been forgotten –
it will all return as lore.
Found my Nana’s clovered dreams
on hills of Ringamore.