13


it hacked into that fat blue vein under your tongue                 hooking in
  with claws while eating all the meat it cuts off the blood so the organ withers
    once it has eaten your tongue it stays clamped to the stub & speaks instead of you
       Evil Goats Terrorise National Park         local residents demand culling
             quartering & grilling with onions 'before it's too late'
said someone who
               wasn't there in the present climate it would be deeply irresponsible
                not to speak in Securicrotch cliches as we roll out more rafts of blended
               opportunities for mixed-sector partnership the personal freedoms
             which have been referred to by someone subsequently thrown out of the scout hut
            were acceptable once but this is now & it's threatened by
           at least 300 goats in the Nantgwynant district of Snowdonia:
         damaging property vandalising gardens & undermining
       the fabric of civilisation not to mention the washing line
     & engaging in practices with outsize knickers draped over their eyes
    which cause offence to all right-thinking persons & preclude satisfactory
   communication with the locals these beasts persist in playing
  chicken with all the passing cars we've reached a point where it would be
 a dereliction of duty not to call in National Trust marksmen
to cull the most troublesome some of which have three foot horns
& alien pupils              we owe it to our children
to shoot the goats with the yellowest teeth in the head
in the most painless & humane way possible
 I've now lost letters from two of Byron's coevals: Ball Hughes
  (The Golden Ball) & Poodle Byng as well as Niki Vendola from Puglia
   a successful gay communist politician though I may have confused
    Nik's dates after the fight in Hunstanton town hall
      I ended up having a beer with the Dutch wrestler Rough Hewn Cleat
        who said his dad played bass with Heinz back in the 60s
          all peroxide crewcuts & nail-varnish red Strats:
           I'd like one of each for Christmas
            Data Rape & Function Creep won the week's tag-team cup
            the file frays my edges into the fog
            honk & that slight give under the heel in the dark which is
           England after rabbits & Mott the Hoople were brought in by the Normans
           we got the idea of drafting all immigrants
        to bolster our presence in Iraq or whatever it was called
   as long as they brought their own mobile phones penknives or spitfires
from Poland Rumania & Bulgaria to ensure a fully integrated
 European system          just don't spill water in the glider
   how many half-empty tins of household paint can you hold in one fist?
                                            ensure no ice crystals remain within the cavity
                                                                  blow through the end without legs
                     Cymothoa exigua enters through the gill of the snapper fish
                                        & feeds on its blood until it can become its tongue
                                    the whole body & shoal wagged by something else's
                                                                                  language for a generation





Cambridge/Norfolk         November