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This poem is taken from PN Review 244, Volume 45 Number 2, November - December 2018.

Let me Explain & other poems Jeremy Over
Au Secours

An Earl in a red bush.
A pearl in the ointment.
A pig in clover.

The mountain and the valley folds.
The rabbit ear also
but an ear for what?

For reasonable adjustments
and no mistake.

Let me explain:

C’est monstrueux’, says Eugène Ionesco,
using a rather nice walking stick to denounce
the whole of the London scene before him.

And not just London – he means everything.

The inscription on his tomb in Montparnasse cemetery reads:

Prier-le Je Ne Sais Qui
J’espère : Jesus-Christ.


Pray to the I don’t-know-who:
Jesus Christ, I hope.
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