Llewellyn at Home: Sixth Battle Stations

 

 

The Folly

Battle Stations

 

 

---

 

 

Llewellyn at Home

 

Colonel Llewellyn keeps visitors to Chequerstone, his private home

In refrigeration, in an odd three-cornered chamber, the host in surmise…

(today, however, he is guest, and arguably self-invited)

But, for troubling a busy man, thus to take what he gets—

He has time. Ages of things, their adaptations, his avocation

Landscapes change…why suppose

The first to raise what might have been a hut…more burrow

roofed in turfen shingles, would keep stock

Ancient marshlands be employed at all, for pasturing, and…

(inconsequential thought) there is a rumour of mock-sheep

fleeces wrapped on armatures, dotted on hillsides

(foxholes under, men with glasses staring out to sea…)

But this cold little room, with its fog-coloured light

Ingeniously linking a closed open porch, to the Tudor front

The repressive ugliness of utility, bouts of wealth and continuity

Speak rootedly, in truculence. The dead here are pleased to remain

And not liking Llewellyn…not having met him, but—

Instinct’s counsel counts for much. The host smiles, taking care…

as though the Meissen ballerina

on the mantelpiece had charmed his eye

…to rise and cross to her contemplation

He smiles again, casts ethereal communication

outbound, in the style of an estate agent, directions

from the Folly to Chequerstone

‘…eminently suitable to your needs…’

Honeymooners cottage, it may be

Says Llewellyn, ‘Just behind you is a shelf of books.

It always entertains me, the way that visitors will mooch about

gazing through windows or fingering one’s bric-à-brac,

but are reluctant to seize upon a thing to read.’

‘How do you do, sir,’ the host says, replacing the figurine

 

 

 

---

Llewellyn at Home

Perhaps a Pair of Eyes

Mince No Words

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2019, Stephanie Foster)