Skip to main content

Does God wear trainers? A Poem about work.



This was written sometime in 1990 or 91 when I was working as an Electrician’s Mate at St James’ Palace and Buckingham Palace.
I was working with a trained electrician called Brian Wombell (he had heard all jokes!). He and I were working in the void above the ceiling in one of the main reception rooms in Buckingham Palace; It was a domed ceiling and had a walkway known as ‘London Bridge’ for access across the dome, this was built when the Palace was built thousands of years ago. We were installing a cable known as a Pyro, a copper encased wire that withstood fire, hence the name. This had to be screwed to the ‘bridge’ and was part of the fire alarm and lighting system. The domed ceiling was inches beneath our feet, we were warned not to drop anything or let any body parts stray off the bridge…..
 

“Does God wear trainers?
Only, I have to ask
Up there can you see?
At the feet of the Blessed Mary
A HiTec or Reebok trainer
Protruding, as though in 3D.”
The Queen looked up, pointed and posed
The above vexed question
To an aide quite thoughtfully.

“Does God wear trainers?”
Asked the Queen of an aide
This time more earnestly
“Not that I am aware M'arm” said he,
“Then that foot poking through there
That bodily extremity
Must, therefore be, an alien entity.”
Said she,

“Well” said he,
“I will make the most urgent of enquiry”
Off dashed the aide hurriedly
The foot remained firmly lodged through Art
With a capital A, most doggedly
An Electrician working above the painted domed gallery
Was screwing conduit to rafters
Totally unaware of anything, quite rashly,
For he was just doing his job quite blissfully.

“Does God wear trainers?”
The question asked had lodged positively
In the now swirling grey matter,
Between the aides ears
He stopped and turned elevating his eyes
To where the size eight trainer did rest
“My Lord, My Stars, My Heaven, I do attest
And forswear as to why in Heaven
That damned foot does there rest!”

“Does God wear trainers?”
The question had not yet been answered
For there the foot poked through Art
Like some modernistic sore thumb
Beneath the Virgin Mary’s feet and blessed incarnality,
Aides gathered and their opinion was lent,
Prince Andrew and Fergie came, 
looked and then went
Shaking their heads in mute bewildered judgement
However, above all this, poor Brian from that hole
His trainered foot could not rend

Down to the imbroglio below
The Electrician’s mate the beleaguered
Brian did send,
With a message from the hell in heaven above,
To increasing Hell below
“Tell them,” said he “ that I did not know,
of the fragility of this ceiling
and of my foot’s imperfect placement,
But say nothing of my hammer’s rapid descent.”
The question remained to those who had gathered below,

“Does God wear trainers?”
Prince Charles was summoned and to the vexed question
His valuable opinion was lent,
“Good God!” said he passionately
“What a monstrosity, what carbuncular protusion
is that pray, beneath the feet of the Blessed Mary?”
“This modern intrusion of unwelcome bent
Must with all haste be removed with a skilled artistic, expungement!”

“Does God wear trainers?”
The question first asked,
the one the Queen had to an aide posed primarily,
Was answered by herself
“Well I quite like it, “ said she,
“it adds a touch of modernity,
To something which is rather quite dour,
compositionally.”

To this end so there Brian remains
He is not, you must understand suffering,
For he is bathed regularly,
Nor does he suffer, nutritionally,
For he has all he can drink and eat,
as he is now a 3D,
Artistic addition to the Dome of The Blessed Mary.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Protein Man of Oxford Street- Stanley Owen Green.

I wrote this Obituary piece for The Guardian about Stanley Green while I was an undergraduate at Goldsmiths' College.  I contacted The Guardian and asked them if I could submit it for publication. It was sent off to them and I waited in eager anticipation for their reply. It was published on Wednesday January 26th 1994,   the Editor  made no changes or additions except by adding some photographs (the photographs used here are later additions by me): "A Consuming Passion.... Stanley Owen Green who has died aged aged 78, was that tall thin man with steel-rimmed glasses who marched it seemed for an eternity up and down London's Oxford Street. It was his banner that made him famous, held high above his head and proclaiming "LESS LUST FROM PROTEIN" in large white letters. Underneath the banner he endured the taunts of sticky schoolchildren and the spittle of office workers alike, to bring his unique, indeed puzzling message to the people of London. He later wate...
3 comments
Read more

The Roswell Returns

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” As those words echoed around Mission Control in Houston a round of spontaneous applause broke out across the site and in the control room. There were yelps and hollers of triumph echoing around the whole of NASA that momentous day in July 1969. In the Command Module Michael Collins was monitoring the vital controls that kept it orbiting the Moon. He flipped the carbon dioxide uptake switch, looked at the battery charge meters, oxygen levels and closely watched the radar screen. He sat back in his flight chair and watched the instrumentation flick and whirr. He daren’t relax, he didn’t relax at all. He paid great attention to the radar screen as he was commanded to. He had to monitor it for spooks, intruders or ghosts. He knew he was looking for Foo Fighters. They did show up on radar, aircrews had confirmed that as fact. It was how fast they appeared and disappeared that threw most pilots. There had been warnings by the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

At War with the Invisible: The Deadly Miasma

The Reverend Henry Whitehead said a short and mumbled prayer over the body of John James Morters and quickly re-covered his own nose and mouth with a scented hankie. He turned and nodded to the undertakers. They took the shrouded body and half threw it into the waiting cart. They didn’t want to hang around in a cholera house; neither did the Reverend. He had attended a few such deaths recently. He thought there were far too many deaths. He walked out into the stench filled air of Soho’s Broad Street, took a short breath and covered his face again. The undertaker coughed and forcefully spat out a gobbet of phlegm, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at the Reverend, ‘’Pologies Sir. It’ll be the stink what gets ‘em too Sir. Taken a few from round ‘ere.’ ‘I don’t subscribe to the theory of bad air my good man. It may stink but it carries no disease.’ ‘That’s as well as like Sir. But we seen ‘em all off. Usually from places such as this stinking hole.’ ‘Have you had m...
1 comment
Read more