When Festus first shivered in the dank weather of lands across the sea from Gaul he cursed his employer and beat his slaves.
With cold water washing his feet on the smooth pebbled shore he wondered what this cursed end of the world may be good for.
‘What I need,’ he thinks, as another wavelet laps his toes, ‘is to get warm and stay that way. What I need is a warm bath, fresh clothes, and-‘
‘SOCKS!’
The final word is shouted, not thought, and Festus now moves with purpose and ease. He hollers at his slaves and demands directions to the nearest bathhouse.
Yes,’ he thinks, ‘socks is where I can extract riches from this damp land with its tin mines, fog, and natives reputed to be barbarous as any in Germania or Palestine.’
Poem and picture by stuartcturnbull.
This poem is one written over the summer. It is part of a suite of poems that considers UK history and life from roughly the end of the Second World War through to an unknown future. Though this particular poem delves back a little further.
The suite's title is from the opening line of the fourth stanza in William Blake's 1808 poem Jerusalem.