Robert Verdon, #187, Chewing the Fat, A Fragment Allegedly Found in Tut Ankh Amun's Tomb.

… and jutting out from the jagged bowl

of the chromium spoon was a rosy

glint of night-light, a groggy ray

from which bounced off a

NATO fat globule in a mince-pie

and set it whinnying

in a ‛come hither’ style that suggested

it had never met an aardvark

in its entire genetic line before.

The chromium bowl reflecting

notorious dampcourses and old lagging,

‛aardvark never ’urt anyone!’

it brayed at all privatised galley slaves while

grotesque gristle crinolines of weeping cumulus

lowered themselves onto every matted hill,

bloody fog settling on top like shaving cream. It

pored over Don Quixote the miniseries again as it sculpted

a bust of Kemal Ataturk out of Pears soap for the

delightful degustation

of the new ‛gentle-as-a-horsefly’

Ottoman Empire.

After which it cemented a Lear Jet

to its strained oblate spheroid and shot up

pullulating into the noisome winter night.