“Music is beneath me” wrote

the fat man, angering his wife by stealing

her broom for walking

scattering the straw. He loved to

pack a nightcap and declaim upon the moors.

“I would have married a servant girl

could I but be sure of her affection.”

But be sure!

Some men are never fated to be sure.

Amidst politicking, pregnancies and

penny-pinching, he found the time

to fall in love with the Wrong Woman.

No wonder he took opium to distract him

from the faceless fiend that follows after

most of us but specially him

who knew so well to court it.

In his mildewed study he sits alone

clutching his bad heart and writing

“Ours is not a logical age”

The Festering Weight :
 
I know you deceived me with the bald-headed lady

My true kin;

My mother renounced

Your swollen giblets in my name.

See? I bleed tulips.

It’s happened twice before; I seed the earth

With children, little miracles.

I give them their inheritance – a

  Carriage full of baby dung

Flung

Down the coal hole

To remind me of you.

Pearly maggots suck my lip

Bee-like, to

Scent the failure that clings to me:

Heredity.

This enemy’s face is shifting cleverly;

First male, then jew, then

blurred and unfamiliar genitalia

like narcissi.

I reserve the right to reject

This choiceless life;

My body’s scarred with

Your refusals.

The blackbird sings out

Blackly.