Where are You?
By David Walsh

Where are You?

As I/we trawl the green lanes in this paradise lost
Its hedgerows spiked with a thorny bush
There appears only one answer

You get tossed around at leisure
To misuse You, the guiltiest pleasure
I abuse You
In every race doubt You
A hypocrite, I cosset You
And all the while Your �true� legend is lost

So I bow my head on this wicked journey
And see Your name beneath me/us
Xanthus
A darkened-red motorcycle of the rarest vintage

Ancient Immortal, Xanthus
Equine servant to heroic Achilles
What tales You could tell of Your service to man
Were You the unlikeliest of prophets
That left him to die of a wretched heel?
And what of Your alter equus, Balius?

Now, as a devotee of a (post?) modern Xanthus
I know that with every turn of the wheel
Every sure twist of hand
I proceed at the mercy of my very own, sometime classic God

But, oh, those treacherous Immortals

I am bound to travel this highway with some �god� or other, ha!
Whose partners in crime eschew the tinctured oil -
That which is golden, renewable and blends so sweetly with alcohol

Knowing the known knowns that are known
This is madness, utter madness

Yet still, as those bushes get smeared in filth
With the most fatal of thorns thriving
I/we ride on
On through the day
Speeding headlong into night
Possibly
But surely?
No, positively
Doomed.

This article was first published on 17th May 2007