II – Diverse Knaves & Harlots, at Dawn in Bristol, Having Drugged

A specious dawn bleeds into spurious day.
The early drunks slither down slimy streets
wiped grudgingly by drizzle lately wrung
from that slate swart and dreary monocloud
pressing eternally on Baptist Mills.
Pastor appears, bald, tabarded and fey,
who with his flock communicates in tweets.
His voice – that cracking Lutine Bell – just sung
the matins to an undiscerning crowd
of party-stragglers coming down from pills.
Drink this my soup, and with me kneel and pray.
To my refrain burp your beery repeats.
Be heedless of the shadow on your lung,
for grace to th’chief of sinners doth abound.
His tambourine at eight being drowned by drills,
his sullen congregation slinks away,
trying not to contemplate the small defeats
– the virtue signalled and the false note clung –
and face, disconsolate, bled dry, and cowed,
the prospect of ascending Ninetree Hill.