Kebechet Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

[For Amy Winehouse (1983 - 2011) ]

KEBECHET


Why were you so wild
Heart-weighed child?
Jazzy dreams and love's mistakes
Lifting ladders, chasing snakes
Dance the squares the dice-throw makes.
What’s that baby at your breast
Princess, are you sure that you know best?
The asps are in the royal quarter
Bringing sleep my pharaoh’s daughter.

The reeds are broken
The river’s spoken
There’s a basket floating there -
And you my foundling needing care,
With needle teeth to suck your share -
Who will love you, who will dare?
Seven lean years and seven fat
Drought and floods will see to that
Serpent goddess Kebechet.

Too brave to last
The prophecy has past.
The pyramid is raised and sealed
Its mysteries stay part revealed:
Sacred madness, cryptic rhyme
Close the passages of time.
But the hieroglyphs of melody
Tongued by you to set the children free
Still promise crossings of the crimson sea.