The Jolly Squatter

Behold him in the field, yon solitary squatter!

Behold him in the print, yon weekend poet!

I know all about you; I’ve read enough of them.

I can no longer bear to go near your reeking messes.

When are you going to clear them away? Squatter!

You think you’re clever, don’t you? Prod. Prod.

Just a pass-time, eh? You dabble in it for fun, eh?

Full marks for your genuine inspiration on the couch:

your drowsy pensativo with the jaded muse of trad.

You’ve brought her up to date, dolled her with the garb

of with-it theory, and moved the mount of parn from

its heights too high to the dingle round the corner.

There’s your jolly-fine words, your ham-strung lines,

your discordant tone, your pander-talk and funny form.

And what about your king-size mod-anguish? I bet, in a leg-

over line, it loses its flavour on the bedpost overnight.

You bask like a bardic-whatname in a roll-your-own dream,

slumbering musings of this ‘ere down-your-way muse,

some sort of brainless, bra-breasted, op-booted Nitty Nora.

Oooh, oooh, she strums up your pen-happy appassionatas

in those I’m-so-deep, glorify-my-name, save-mankind brains

where your shaky idol of false-talent squats over the job,

straining after a week of constip, getting a load of your mind.

Then, not in sustained scribble-spont but in bitty squitter,

stretching out the lines of wire-wool and dicky-bird fugue,

disguising your swollen idealets too swollen for your stream

of experience too narrow - you dollop out your roseless dunghills.

Oh, how can the jolly-squatter leave his reeking messes so,

hardly hidden in the field, for all to put their foot in,

his dirty deed on earth, his mark on life, food for flies?

Author's Note

Written a long time ago when I was angry and jealous. I hope readers will be offended as it is not aimed at them.