Chatsworth Estate

Chatsworth Estate In an airy corridor Duchess Georgina laughs from a painting A grand society beauty broken On the hazardous reefs of marriage Ménage à trois, like another, later, Spencer Now she’s a period piece Her home’s a setting for the movie makers Of bodice rippers, and 21st century Darcy lovers In the farm estate Pigs perform for the kiddies Outside the smooth harmonious lawns Lead off to misty horizons Having enjoyed TV appearances The mansion welcomes its fans First on the hit parade of Stately Homes Formidable ornaments, luscious and spectacular Stun shuffling, gawping visitors into awe Outside, a fountain like a released pee After a lengthy wait, constantly empties The contents of a channelled lake to the air The splintering identities of a rock garden By turns is Gothic, Dysney, even flintstone Stonehengian This pomp and pleasure seat exhausts the eye With its surfeit of garnered goodies The backdrop rural tapestry of trees Capably sculpted by Brown, the master gardener. Down on the Farm, There’s a Gloucester Old Spot Piglet Perky bottom, corkscrew tail Rooting and squealing this Gloucester old spot piglet Leaps like a crackerjack imp In an explosion of pork on trotters Envelope ears flap open As this high stepping guzzling grunter Greets the spring with a snort There’s a Shorthorn Russet and milky white 60’s fringe The shorthorn’s sides are swollen with calf Ballooning in late pregnancy Udder, in mint condition at the ready Tail begraggled with dung Whiskery mouth and steaming snout She is dreaming of Lickpenny Farm And Cuckoostone Lane, Glimpsed once from a cattle float There are Chickens Stilt walkers on twiglet toes Cheepers, peckers, neck stretchers Gawkers, squawkers, huddlers Sibling clumps of cosy Balls of fluff from Eggland, Yolky yellow There’s a hen Seedy-eyed puffball of feathers Patterned like parquet flooring Pea brain coiffed with a red comb and wattles Like melted sealing wax Wing archer, pecker and strutter Scratcher of ground and pinions A blob of excretia emerges from a feathery muff Plops on the dust, like a quivering dollop Of mint and vanilla cream And In the Poultry Shed Hens perch like harem ladies Squatting in orange saris Sociably grooming One preens her ruffled feathers Another snatches sips from a drinking bowl By turns, timid and bold Broody and coquettish They are all winks and sashaying tails A crescendo of burbles Like toffee slowing turning on the boil A matronly specimen, florid and flowing Stares through the latticed window Lacking the will to flee Some rest on the ground Like upturned soup tureens Of mulligatawny, with Seemingly headless bodies, Beaks, eyes and necks tucked Most discreetly away One has drawn up her eyelids Sealing her vision in sleep Meanwhile, Goat’s hair flows over his hooves Like a boy in a man’s shirt His horns rise up between his ears Pointing in different directions Like a village signpost His snooty nose is aquiline His lipless mouth moves sideways Languidly chewing hay His beard is stained with spittle His tail, stuck on as a tufty afterthought