Tuned in, turned off, turned on, turned up, turned puce…
Mother Goose, Aladdin, and Buttons
glaring at me like thunder.
`Prey, what ails thou Panto-types?` I seasonalled.
`A flagrant breach of protocol, that’s what!’ said Goose, irate, pacing.
`Cinders is a tard! Whittington’s a dachshund! The ugly sisters are ants! Need I continue?` Buttons stormed with absurd pomp.
‘My lamp is empty.` Aladdin wailed.
`I do not see what it has to do with me.` I said with modesty and aplomb.
`Just typical,’ Goose tutted, `will no one take responsibility ?`
…
Luck to get out of their alive,
I tell you, slipped out
when the Bovril lady came,
via the sink, town drain,
and Alaskan tundra to here.
Thumbnail One:
`The Twiglet and Cheeseball.`
Up at the crack of doom and so it pours,
acrid quicklime, gregarious sash window,
drone buzz, sable confetti, nasal toot,
sootfall, gasp, volume, mass. What folly, what
pulchritude, what bafflement. Life was a
giant veiny nose, a red herring, a
wanton flop. So be it. Que Sera, Sera.
Horace Day, Matt Busby, James `The Fact` Durante…
pock dugout, dabbed down and dusted copious
cloud of potassium permanganate,
spotlighted by Lazarus, light reveals
white head and lost tribe of Erin: Quilty’s Pals.
Stop making scents,
tincture your sphincter with
perfidious salve,
snort pulverised juniper,
sweat quinine ampules…
another one soon
stifled in shallow,
lifeless cant.
Too late for love,
like the vestibule
catastrophe nook.
A broken swan
negotiating
burning boats,
safe in a synthesized,
furless chrysalis.