On the Toilet Facilities at Latitude Festival
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?