Greed
I am a versifier, with some words inside my head,
And sometimes they leak out and sprawl across an empty page.
Or maybe it’s a keyboard and a flicker-screen instead.
Whatever. Just to tell you that I’ve reached a certain stage:
In a fit of self-importance, and a sense I should be sainted,
I’ve lashed out on a brush, and now my portrait’s to be painted.
I have to have a coat of arms (containing, need you ask it,
A rubber and a hammer and a stopwatch and thesaurus,
And a pile of fresh rejection slips, and of course a bamboo basket,
And a sonnet and caesuras and a really belting chorus):
And now I’ll be immortalised in glowing specks and flecks.
To view me, you will need a pair of cardboard 3D specs.
We all of us need history to lean against our shoulder,
To tell us that there’ll always be a memory of sorts,
To make us feel that there is point in growing slightly older,
To make sure that the reference books contain some good reports.
So hit me with the Dulux while I’m thinking, while I drowse and
For goodness sake don’t talk to me of thirty-seven thousand.
