Talking to myself – at The Great Exhibition, Crystal Palace, London 1851
‘ A barometer filled with leeches
in a bottle of water; fancy that’.
I almost felt a bullet singe me
from one of Samuel Colt’s newly
minted revolvers. Queen Victoria
looked eloquent in a green floral
dress although Albert trailed stiffly
behind her as usual – such German
thoroughness he could have been
locked in a straitjacket. Seed drills
and spinning machines – whatever
will they think of next ? T. H. Huxley,
hairy as an orang utan stood gazing
at a llama. Irritable men with beards –
I swear each could offer camouflage
to a nest of thrushes jostled me through
cannon fire and bombardment as if
The battle of Waterloo had reoccurred.
They feed paupers on bits of pastry,
leftovers from the aristocracy
and landed gentry. The boys and girls
circle like piranhas dumped in The Serpentine.
A woman wearing a bonnet drinking gin;
I heard her chuntering loudly about how
one day man would land on the moon.
To contemplate a person could possess such
a crazy idea. Her teeth were yellow. Pity
Bedlam is already overflowing with the insane ‘.
Chris Johnson has had poems in Orbis, Other Poetry, The Journal, Seventh Quarry etc