Closing time, Saturday, ‘Top o’ the Trent’:
it’s nothing personal. Mix alcohol
with youth in equal quantities round here,
there’s always some bloke boiling for a fight.
It’s mainly posturing, making a fist
f wounded pride, loud as a fusillade
of roaring megs on karaoke night.
The police turn out; no ambulance required.
Not far away at Hopton Heath, mid March
of 1643, the Royalists
roll up with Roaring Meg, combine to march
on Stafford, agents of the antichrist.
Although they seem to hold a winning hand,
the cavaliers decide to quit the field
when dusk arrives to shroud the English dead
and neither side has any more to give.
http://www.ablemuse.com/v8/bio/peter-branson
