'Blues for Kaki King' and Other Poems

Blues for Kaki King

If I could get these six strings working they still wouldn't work on you.
I'm entitled to exit at any point and everybody's glad when I do.

I have never listened to 'Wild Thing' and felt sorry for myself.
Thin cuts of wild thing fall off the freezer shelf.

Now we're going to do a cheer starting way way back at the back
of the room and moving to the front in an approximation of Barack

Obama's attack on all that his great nation holds dear. I hit
the road, Jack. I hit several deer. I listen to the hits. A bit

later I remember to steer. A piece of cake. A pissy piste.
Listen to my scales, Kaki: Louis MacNeice's little fish,

little fishes, circling the first hurdle, the second rate.
The happy finish: each left fin wings its way to the inevitable right,

the inalienable right bestowed upon those who ask more than once for applause,
entitling everybody to exit through the big black backstage doors.



Draining Song
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