More troublesome than a Poll Tax Form.
More noisier than a Lada car.
Able to redistribute food with a single puke.
Is it lovable?
Is it laughable?
Is it even worth it?
Of course it is - it's superbabe!
UNCLE BERT'S LAST TUNE
The women work quietly in the back room
I sit with his life across my knees.
They laughingly wash his cold body
I lovingly stroke his worn and battered tuba,
And recall a resplendent uniform.
The women stand by his bed
While I place his life by his side,
His cold stiff fingers on warm brass stops.
Then his body settles and plays his last tune.
A slow, resounding fart.
DEATHLESS CARESS
Death caressed my face in passing
but didn't stop that night.
I sat confused amid tinkling glass,
A drawn-out silence, hot ticking metal.
I tasted the encounter in warm blood,
smelt it in the petrol fumes,
saw it in the twisted wreck,
and was frightened by the suddenness
of our meeting.
- a head-on, resulting in a cracked cheekbone -
THE DAY THE HOOVER BIT BACK
Do you recall what you were doing
the day JFK was shot?
It was like that when the Hoover bit back.
I was relaxing in a hot tub
when my wife's scream shot me through the door.
She stood in a corner; eyes wide
while the hose waved back and forth
like some demented snake.
I watched, mouth agape, as it struck.
She elongated and disappeared.
