27


Aphrodite, riding on a goat,
keeps me here, anchored in song


I'm still removing yellow           hopes  &  memories from the loft
finding things       I thought        were only in my head:
the mask & snorkel Lynn used     when chopping onions
a video of Frankie Howerd's 1973    sitcom Whoops Baghdad
    (followed by the shadow cabinet      apparently
making seasonal treats for dogs from     sieved liver & advocaat)
              my old croomstick scorched by     Jenny Burntarse
                                                the pickled dick     of some Venetian saint
2 boxes of almost-fossilized fishing tackle    a derelict French horn
              what does Byron think  said Shelley
    about the Sudan goat wife death scandal?
well Charlie seemed to really love his goat Rose
    to the extent that a bunch of  Sudanese elders
had to force him to do the right thing     make her        an honest  goat
                                       & pay a dowry of 15,000 dinars        (£25)
the marriage didn't last         Rose seems to have died
after swallowing plastic wrappers  on the mean streets         of Juba
                       Byron          with a  fragrant Italian countess sat on his face
was neglecting to think about it at all    but when pressed
suggested           oh Charles thou art sick                 in a deep sweet muff-
led growl             there are too many texts in my face today: The Secrets
of East Anglian Magic / Welcome to Tehran / Mastering Mullet /
Norfolk 'n good: an anthology of Norfolk Modernist Poetry/
How to Really Sell Your House/                                                            check out
thenationalmulletclub.org                         advised the Omniscient Mussel
fresh in from Kropotkin Seamount         before drawing back a curtain of
snot-green seaweed to show Poseidon      picking up his prong & suitcase
full of Rilke                           & walking away from the last blue room of all
even ignoring the cast of Stingray      except to ask the fish-arsed blonde
are you the Brighton Marina?           [where I got my pirk & muppet rig]
Some god!      she mouthed     he doesn't  know about the 3 billion acres
of American ocean          to go with their 2.3 of dry land
he thinks he still has some control                  I found my   flounder spoon
& a red German jellyworm                    on a 12 inch Ziplock whisker boom
a small chemical nightlight                                                known as starlight
that trembles                                            on the tip of my rod     in the dark
as the night river moves out to sea                       when nobody is watching
we do what the scissor sisters say                                whispered the O.M.
the world is your limpet                    in the witching hour before high-tide
                                                                                        I go & try to read the water





Cambridge / Burnham Deepdale         May 2007