then spoke in a drawl:
‘What I was living, I am too dead,
A Fenian, an alcoholic and a junky,
Like James Clarence fucking Mangan,
And a better singer of the songs
You’ll not find this side of Lethe’s waters!
Up in the light I took my share of the shite:
I’ve been raped and spat on and shat on and abused,
Kicked in the teeth till the blood came out my ears
By Her Majesty’s men in the blue cloth.
There’s nothing this side of Hell’s gates
I haven’t seen before, I tell you;
But would you be having any cheap pills,
If you know what I mean,
Your fellow there looks like a man
After my own taste.’
Then Berrigan spoke back: ‘Shane MacGowan,
It’s you, isn’t it? You haven’t lost any
Of your blustering pride, have you?
But you’ve had a skinful already,
Perhaps that’s why you pay no attention
To these searing flakes, I’m not handing out
Any free pills to you.’ And then he turned
His face to me, saying: ‘That man was once king
Of the hit parade, one of the seven Pogues,
He blasphemed his way to the top of the charts,
Then all the way down again, till he ended
Up in the state you see him in now.
Now follow me, and see you don’t step
On the burning sand, but stick
To the straight track close to the wood.’
In silence we came to a spot where a
Thick concrete pipe carried toxic effluent
Off the farmland, spewing it into the
Waters of the river of blood (its stink
Still sticks in my nostrils!). As I gazed out
Across the estuary, a thought framed
Itself in my mind, and wishing to know
The answer I asked Berrigan why it was
That the river flowed red.
‘Not far from campus,’ said Berrigan,
‘There lies a place they call Colchester,
Where the British Army rest
Between tours of duty,
And under whose king, Cymbeline,
the world once knew peace.
Before that, the Romans built their capital here,
Camulodunum. North of there, the Iceni
Still ruled, a warrior race,
But when their king – I forget his name – died,
The Romans turned on his widow;
She was whipped publicly and her daughters raped.
This was a big mistake: Boudicca
Turned the might of her army on
Camulodunum and torched it.
The Romans, mostly retired veterans,
Took refuge in the Temple of Claudius,
But this didn’t do them much good.
Boudicca torched that too, and to this day,
If you dig down, you can still see a seam
Of burnt red clay, the destruction layer.
It’s the blood she spilt that makes the river
Colne run red, and it’s this river that
Encircles the campus and feeds the lakes,
One of which, as you have seen,
she still sails
in her coracle.’
Then I asked another thing that had been
Puzzling me: ‘Where is the river Lethe, then,
Of which MacGowan spoke?’
‘Hold your horses,’ said Berrigan, ‘we’ve still
Got a long way to go. You’ll see your Lethe
In good time, if we get out of this abyss.
That’s where the shades go to wash themselves
When their guilt is taken off by penitence.
Now it’s time to move on,
See that you follow me, and stick to the raised track.’
CANTO XV
As the Flemings between Wissant and Bruges,
In fear of the flood tides’ constant threat,
Build strong dykes to repel the sea;
And as Canvey islanders,
Fearful of another flood like in ’53,
Raise up barrages against the estuary,
In like fashion were these banks built,
Though not so high or so large,
By Roman hands, from mud and oyster shells.
We had left the wood behind us,
So far back, indeed, that had I turned
To look I couldn’t have seen it,
When we met a troop of spirits
Who walked beside the bank, on the sand;
From where they’d come from, in the distance,
The eye could make out barbecues,
Which lit up the water’s edge,
Flinging sparks high into the air;
As they approached, each one peered at us,
As in the evening clubbers
Look at
‘What I was living, I am too dead,
A Fenian, an alcoholic and a junky,
Like James Clarence fucking Mangan,
And a better singer of the songs
You’ll not find this side of Lethe’s waters!
Up in the light I took my share of the shite:
I’ve been raped and spat on and shat on and abused,
Kicked in the teeth till the blood came out my ears
By Her Majesty’s men in the blue cloth.
There’s nothing this side of Hell’s gates
I haven’t seen before, I tell you;
But would you be having any cheap pills,
If you know what I mean,
Your fellow there looks like a man
After my own taste.’
Then Berrigan spoke back: ‘Shane MacGowan,
It’s you, isn’t it? You haven’t lost any
Of your blustering pride, have you?
But you’ve had a skinful already,
Perhaps that’s why you pay no attention
To these searing flakes, I’m not handing out
Any free pills to you.’ And then he turned
His face to me, saying: ‘That man was once king
Of the hit parade, one of the seven Pogues,
He blasphemed his way to the top of the charts,
Then all the way down again, till he ended
Up in the state you see him in now.
Now follow me, and see you don’t step
On the burning sand, but stick
To the straight track close to the wood.’
In silence we came to a spot where a
Thick concrete pipe carried toxic effluent
Off the farmland, spewing it into the
Waters of the river of blood (its stink
Still sticks in my nostrils!). As I gazed out
Across the estuary, a thought framed
Itself in my mind, and wishing to know
The answer I asked Berrigan why it was
That the river flowed red.
‘Not far from campus,’ said Berrigan,
‘There lies a place they call Colchester,
Where the British Army rest
Between tours of duty,
And under whose king, Cymbeline,
the world once knew peace.
Before that, the Romans built their capital here,
Camulodunum. North of there, the Iceni
Still ruled, a warrior race,
But when their king – I forget his name – died,
The Romans turned on his widow;
She was whipped publicly and her daughters raped.
This was a big mistake: Boudicca
Turned the might of her army on
Camulodunum and torched it.
The Romans, mostly retired veterans,
Took refuge in the Temple of Claudius,
But this didn’t do them much good.
Boudicca torched that too, and to this day,
If you dig down, you can still see a seam
Of burnt red clay, the destruction layer.
It’s the blood she spilt that makes the river
Colne run red, and it’s this river that
Encircles the campus and feeds the lakes,
One of which, as you have seen,
she still sails
in her coracle.’
Then I asked another thing that had been
Puzzling me: ‘Where is the river Lethe, then,
Of which MacGowan spoke?’
‘Hold your horses,’ said Berrigan, ‘we’ve still
Got a long way to go. You’ll see your Lethe
In good time, if we get out of this abyss.
That’s where the shades go to wash themselves
When their guilt is taken off by penitence.
Now it’s time to move on,
See that you follow me, and stick to the raised track.’
CANTO XV
As the Flemings between Wissant and Bruges,
In fear of the flood tides’ constant threat,
Build strong dykes to repel the sea;
And as Canvey islanders,
Fearful of another flood like in ’53,
Raise up barrages against the estuary,
In like fashion were these banks built,
Though not so high or so large,
By Roman hands, from mud and oyster shells.
We had left the wood behind us,
So far back, indeed, that had I turned
To look I couldn’t have seen it,
When we met a troop of spirits
Who walked beside the bank, on the sand;
From where they’d come from, in the distance,
The eye could make out barbecues,
Which lit up the water’s edge,
Flinging sparks high into the air;
As they approached, each one peered at us,
As in the evening clubbers
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