Twenty-five hours of love in the life of
"Happy the Golden Prince Rides Again
" his sluggish purple crest flopping
Over his dotty eyes as he casts a revolting
Shadow over the courtyard
For many years he had played by himself in
The vaults and turrets of
His father's castle
Occasionally drawing back the musty
Curtains of burgundy red
That masked him from the challenging sun
Or the ovulating moon he would lurch past
The flies on the windowsill like
A figurehead through a bag of dust, tip
Over the battlements and cough himself rigid
Until white tears tumbled sluggishly
From the slot
In his neck he would watch them
Recede into the fiery blue
Waters of the living moat and
Hiss with amusement as
Each drop animated into a
Steel grey tadpole that
Writhed and dipped away towards the bank

One lurid afternoon Happy was
Surprised to see an
Ex tadpole of his develop into something he
Had never before seen, for living alone as
He did, with only mirrors for company
He knew nothing of women

The creature stood motionless on
The opposite bank
Her alabaster limbs beckoning him from his
Father's hall it was weird -She
Seemed as still and cold as a statue indeed
Happy fancied he saw ivy curling
'round her feet yet
Her very stillness challenged the
Foetid breeze that stirred
The trees and shrubs about the moat

Happy sensed that she was important

Then, suddenly she opened both her eyes for
What must have been the first time
And he saw that they were trained on him
They were of a powerful matte strawberry hue
And they shone with the
Lustre of newly-opened
Chestnuts her left hand dipped
Slightly and her
Mouth turned up at the corner
As if to finally dispel any
Doubts as to her existence
A creeper that dangled flaccidly from the
Nearest turret-top brushed against the
Shoulders of the purple headed prince
As he stood, pinned, like
A butterfly on a dartboard transfixed
But still writhing at her beauty
Her sneer increased to a smile
And, as it did, happy felt like a bottle of
Ginger beer that someone
Had shaken violently and was about to open
Giddily, he swung himself onto the
Battlements, grabbed the idle creeper
And swung across the water
Toward the princess he
Landed with a milky squelch at
Her side and beneath
An extraordinarily gnarled sumac tree
Instantly she leapt away
Giving the lie to her immobility -this was
Flesh and blood! Happy was convulsed with
A strange yet familiar sensation he felt
He should be in a bathroom

And as he looked
The lowering vegetation above and before him
Took on the dingy suggestive
Aura of dripping taps the moss
Beneath his shiny pink
Feet was breathing sponge
Caressing every pore of his
Skin with slimy microscopic
Tendrils, and the moat behind him
Glistened like a sapphire basin
Silhouetting the darker lilypads that floated
Across it like filthy suds

Abruptly, Happy broke off this reverie
And wildly rotated his gaze
The creature had vanished where could it
Be? Happy reared up like
A stallion and rammed through the
Undergrowth in pursuit of the
First female he had ever seen a
Slithering rubbery whale diverted him
From his soggy course and he
Glanced to his left:

There it was! Crouched in the
Corner of a clearing
Her eyes bleeding light
Into his, wearing a leopard-skin leotard
Clutching an antenna to her brow
And muttering "mm-gah" through a
Megaphone at him the ground shook
And the jaws of the Earth admitted Happy the
Golden prince headfirst into a deep hole the
Wavy green turf closed over him
Though his thrashing feet
Disturbed the surface
For a moment or two longer
Happy found himself upside down in
A narrow fluorescent well
That was both moist and
Cheesy he quivered uncontrollably
Aching with every inch of his soul to
Scratch something, but where, he could
Not tell his feet were
Ringing like telephone bells
And his head felt ready to
Burst his cloak flapped
Open over his head like a bat's
And he became aware that the
Well was growing hotter
And more muscular it seemed
Strangely enough to be shrinking about him
Like a skin around a fine pork sausage yet he
Didn't mind -his whole life at the
Castle lay behind him now
Sterile and eventless

He thought only how he would love to sneeze
And felt nothing but relief when
The cool arms of the
Woman vigorously unscrewed his head
And the toothpaste flowed out
As if it were gushing from a broken dam
Into the very womb of the earth

"So that's who I am!" he cried

Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince

Copyright: BMG Rights Management
Writer(s): Robyn Hitchcock