Poem: ‘The Late Queen’s Jester’
Alex Smith, 2 September 2004
Crookback, I sit at the great bay window
swinging a pig’s bladder from a stick – a severed head
condemned to lightness. I’m muddled, addled, a mad egg.
Pick, peck, pick – purple-black, I count mussel-coloured elytra,
beetle my brain into shards, listen to nocturnal insect taps,
tick, tick, tap. Laughter turns to cackle.
Whistle and jibe, whistle and jibe . . ....