Brompton Oratory
“No, after you.”
A polite American beckons me,
So...
I press the buttons, I get the ticket,
And catch the Underground train.
Ah, damn and blast…
Three minutes later would have been two pounds cheaper.
Off-peak, you see.
I get there and the museum doesn’t open ‘til ten.
Plan B now, a walk down the road,
The Brompton Oratory, London Catholic church.
It’s softly dark, forgivingly gloomy,
Kind to my sins but a gentle reminder
My meter is ticking, I’m closer to Death.
An elderly lady prays at an altar,
Sensible nylon anorak
And modesty veil
Steeped in tradition.
It’s her and me
‘Til a ring of a bell and a boxing bruiser,
Stubbly head and long black gown
Covering a belly devoted to living
The Temporal Life.
“It’s me; I’m Barry, the Spiritual Minder”.
A priest wafts behind,
Tall and pale in robes of white,
The smoke behind the black-coated bomb.
They float past the statues arrested mid-action
As they brandish keys
Of polished stone,
Past red and gold brocade
Hung high on every pillar
Like a repetitive running gag,
But where they shout
It’s the whisper that gets my attention,
The small wooden triangle
In the grey, tarnished dome…
It’s the Trinity, perhaps.
Barry the Bruiser walks on by, his smile is gentle.
I twitch an ear
To the out-of-focus murmur
Of a distant Mass.
Back in the sunlight the traffic is busy,
The world hasn’t stopped
And Barry the Bruiser’s
Ecclesiastical garb
Is suddenly tired and faded and real.
He twists a foot
Like an uncle dancing at a wedding
And a dog end dies
And a burnt full stop appears on the ground,
The end of a paragraph nearer to God.
I think the museum must be open now.