I am in a tiswas about Mr. Nasty, a tantrum about Mrs. T., a lather about the serrated edge of my neck but, above all, a right state about the way the Soviet Union is going these days. All I need is a calmative, to make me take less seriously the serious things in life. However, the problems with which I’m faced are like the shaving mirror – it magnifies my mug to mind-blowing proportions and, what with the bulging eyes and the gaping pores, I seem ever outraged, furious, frenzied, cataleptic… When I poke my tongue, it’s a flesh-eater of a snake writhing out at me! God, how can my equanimity survive this? No wonder the blade jabs down my whisker-roasted skin, more like a novice on razor-sharp skis than the pure frictionless skimming of a Torville and Dean. Which reminds me, this country’s sports people don’t stand a chance against those reared in communist states. I put it all down to Mrs T. Makes me mad!

(published ‘Purple Patch’ 1989)

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I really thought I must *be* the Invisible Man,
With waxen strips swaddled round a swollen head.
I stumbled, stood, scratched an itch, then ran and ran,
Even if my vacant limbs felt like heavy swinging lead.


Could I be indeed the solid ghost of H.G.Wells?
Or the empty effigy of a zombie's dummy?
Then a thousand tongues from a million hells
Said I wasn't invisible, merely a gummy mummy.


(published 'Star*Line' 1993)