The Neurotic

they think he doesn't know the fools
of course he does
their eyes
stir his coffee and taste his tongue
piss his every thought
what fools they are to think
their pan-fried intellects go unobserved
by an overcoat squatting naked before their brain.

the candle soup of vision is limited
strictly limited to him
and him alone
begod rest his soul a whiff of cheese
on a mouse-trap mind
could circumcize the twofold masses
that shrink diplomatically behind a new statesman
and a chiffoned curtain of fourth generation contempt.
page 32 he who swings highest sings gayest
(a gibbet of love
crowed the undergraduate)
perhaps they are all infatuated with me
if that's the word
(is it, my friend?
surely you heard me think?)
but then maybe a twenty-foot keyhole
of promiscuity sounds better after dark.

waiter, remove from sight
these buds of theirs
that venus bloom fly-trapped
on a lapdog of contented malcontent
this caffeine if such it is called
has been christmas islanded by my own presence
the only pity being that, despite trifling differences,
contamination reprieves those two watching from the corner.
Poor souls . . .

John Parkyn