LAMENT OF GOLDSBY FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS, LAINDON,
FOR THOSE STAFF MEMBERS WHO WERE LOST AT
THE GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL OF 2011

Kevin Goldsby,
Founder and Managing Director of
Goldsby Financial Solutions, Laindon:

The drum circles and campfire rounds
will sing of your prescience
when insuring against the success
of the EuroMillions lottery syndicate,
and the mass evacuation of core personnel
to ghastly mansions in Barling and Billericay.

Yet, even you were blindsided by Glastonbury.

Your five employees
who took Thursday and Friday off
to attend the festival
are lost to you now,
never to return
to their rented two-bedroom flats
and starter homes in Basildon,
Benfleet and Westcliff-on-Sea.

In the Field of Avalon
Michael Eakins from Accounts
pulled a sword from a stone.
He was last seen entering a barrow
beneath a sacred circle
pledging to rise again
in the festival’s hour of need.

He will not be there on Monday
to pick up your voicemail
regarding Andrew Dangerfield.

Susan Norris had her face painted
black, white, and orange
by a man who juggled pots and brushes
in the Theatre and Circus field

She can no longer resolve
your staff conflicts
in her former capacity
as Director of Human Resources.

She is a Tiger now
roaming the tors and ravines
of the West Country,
carrying off sheep
and student hikers.
Rarrr!

Steven Bishop’s PowerPoint
presentation for the
South-eastern Financial Goods & Services Conference
at The Holiday Inn, in Maidenhead,
now less than one week away,
resides upon his laptop
like an unfinished novel,
to be picked over
in the Weekend Review
section of The Guardian
by Sebastian Faulks
who will dwell upon
its implied sadness,
and by Margaret Atwood
who will compare it to Pompeii.

Its author fell from a lavatory seat
into the foul pit below
where he clung to a raft made from
digital cameras and mobile phones.

The stench will not leave him now.
He will join the similarly afflicted
at their encampment
which is removed from society

In a parting phone call
to his family
he said:

“Forget me.”

In Strummerville
Angela Flack was carried off by stilt-walkers.
In time she will adapt to their strange traditions
never again to walk unbowed
through a normal-size office door.

A man-made giantess,
her very existence challenging
those passages of the
Disability Discrimination Act
relating to rights of access.

What of Ryan Mathers -
the callow office junior
due to sit his accountancy exams in October?
A mooted replacement for
Matthew Stokes
who is moving to Grantham.

He was last seen dancing
to Mumford & Sons.

He has converted to
the Druid faith.

He has run away
to join The Kills,
or The Thrills,
or The Chills.

Will his girlfriend, Charlotte Harris, parade
the widow’s walk of Talk nightclub
on Southend seafront,
like John Riley’s betrothed
forsaking all other suitors?

No.

She will marry Darren from the Kursaal estate.
She will sell her story to Love It! magazine
and go on The Jeremy Kyle Show.

“In these challenging economic times,
with ours aces out of the deck,
we must evaluate our key strengths,”

says Kevin Goldsby
addressing his depleted head office
like the general of a defeated army.

“We erect this brass plaque,
ordered from the
Viking office stationery catalogue,
to our departed colleagues,
and pledge to honour their memory
by consolidating the growth
of the last two financial quarters.

“My second in command –
Derek Livermore
will now read a letter of condolence
from Fearne Cotton.”