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This poem is taken from PN Review 91, Volume 19 Number 5, May - June 1993.

Ballad of the Putrefaction Christopher Middleton
 
The poem of hateful persons hot in his mind
He met the girl whose work was to roll in creosote
Himself he wanted to set fire to the hateful persons
Nobodies governing nations without any sense of what's
    what
Not victors but victims of their spooks and greeds

Those were to be the subjects of a poem which began
The moment he walked into one of their oblong hotels
He smelled the frowst of power they had left behind
People not born for power but victims of it
Who spray around the scene like tomcats their fear
The poem began but was interrupted by fresh sounds

A tongue moved in a sticky mouth and a snowflake fell
Those were calls from pigeon throats in the courtyard
This was a finger brushing the skin of a tambourine
These were the dawning sounds he heard
When the power of hateful persons first crawls in the dark
...


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