each schoolboy used to know the saw
laid deep in tracts of Danish lore

Forkbeards pious son and heir
Cnut the great, konungr,

his throne set to the boiling awe
somewhere along a Hampshire shore

but was it somewhat further north
he faced down scorned Ægir’s bore

his person kissed by Trisantona
upon her banks at Gainsborough

What a Cnut! (13)


Lazy river bends twist through ages past.
scoring dark foreboding lines between the course
and curse. Forgotten pits, tombs long and vast
bear pain. This sufferance an ancient source
behind whose name, Ozymandias, who?
Forgotten one, with statuette and dust;
With little plot of land presenting; cue
besotted fans and weeping stands and rust
-ed crimson stains. Pyramids worn and sunned.
Grizzled maws gnaw foxholes. Anxious shadows
creep, kettling the dreams of untold freedom
long since sold. The sons of emp-ires fade.
Mocking wizened worries and wet laird Cnut,
who knocking heads with entropy slumbers cut.