Drugged out,
wearing a dickey bow tie,
kinky cat,
in a Chelsea flat,
dreaming of Hedgehogs and Nightingale’s,
on daddy’s country estate.
Was it an illusion that England was at ease,
at ease with itself, the summer of 1964,
fools with tools of music making magic?
The weekend Beatnik hippy,
making a pretence at dropping out.
I can hear Frank Ifield singing,
“I remember you” from a scratched out 45 single.
Vicarage garden lawn,
mothers union fete,
itchy short trousers on boys with cropped hair,
cut by barbers with red Indian blood!
England at ease!
Whether an illusion or a reality I cannot tell from this great distance, all I know is that when I think of the word ‘Safe’ these images come flooding in.
England at ease, or mind games on the canvas of time?