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Poem

On the Toilet Facilities at Latitude Festival

Tim Wells

It doesn’t help, reading Ovid’s
Metamorphoses on the train;

But once arrived and with tent erected,
Anxiety slips and I start to relax:

Time for a contemplative break.
The toilets are a row of stalls

Set some six foot above a hungry
Chasm. My shit drops and ruins

As fast as the condemned. Paper flutters 
Down like prayers. Sat above

This Hades I feel a discernable sense
Of power. Toilets are usually a confining

Affair, bouncing back noise
In cramped confines. Here, the depths

Echo their awful majesty.
Once at the poetry stage I’m to read

After ‘The Scaffold’s’ Roger McGough.
Midway through his set I adjourn

To the backstage Portaloo. As my piss 
Arcs perfectly in, I stare down

At the swimming Richards and wonder
Which one is McGough’s?