Upending a Story by Trevor Thorn

I’m in the middle of a delightful few days. I’m having a quiet week in the magnificent setting of Launde Abbey, the diocesan retreat house for the dioceses of Leicester and Peterborough. Pam, my wife, is on an Icon painting retreat led by Peter Murphy. I have come along to enjoy the quiet and hopefully, to complete a number of fragments of poems that have been started and laid to one side, generally because of a lack of time – so this is a splendid. splendid opportunity to make sure that some part-finished material is not wasted.

One of the pieces I had not completed followed from an earlier prose piece ‘A Temple Trader’s Rant’ and now, in a few short verses expresses the same individual’s satisfaction later in the same week...  

A Temple Trader’s Glee

He lashed me with a rope of knots

And wrecked a whole day’s trade,

But I’ve just seen him flayed alive,

It’s been a great, great day.

For generations we have served

The people of this land

By always having Temple coin

Kept readily to hand.

Exchanging it for Roman dross

Or valued artefacts,

Of course, we have made profits

Even after sky-high tax.

The priestly leaders love us

Our business keeps them clean

From handling ‘filthy lucre’

which to them is quite obscene.

So when this Galilean

Disturbed the Festal flow

When profit margins always peak,

He simply had to go.

The priests were quite ecstatic

We’d drawn the Rabbi’s wrath

And given them a reason, just,

At least to have him flogged.