God what a voice! the clashing grate

Of teeth and tongue, the strangled words,

The clotted throat, the stifled spate

Of breathing phlegm - the units, birds

That plummet wing to wing. What herds

Of lies and learned cod. Come night

They lay flat in the dew like turds

In copse or square, awaiting light

To stagger, cursing, on from plight to plight.

The lurking pause, the closing gasp

A footstep further down your way,

To work the bone shanks rasp on rasp

In tightening spirals, till the day-

-spring breaks and night-time comes to lay

Across the withered lap for good

A pause before the stammers say,

"It's like a deadweight". In the wood

The underbrush confounds just as it should.

At least when all is said and done,

Their lot is fixed, in just this trench

Until determined terms. Their only fun

The deft description of the stench,

The lucent grace, the lurching wrench

From gob to guts and back defined

As if the planets danced! The bench

Beside the dark canal, the mind,

The glorious skies behind the shaking blind.

Unchained upon the moors, the feet

Still follow their delinquent tread,

The bodies close behind. They meet

At last in cold reunion - head

Between the knees, the bracken dead

And dry and cutting to the hands,

The summer gone. "Now, come.", he said,

"Let's watch the mermaids play along the strand

And gaze across the sea towards the distant land.".