When Señoritas walk at night,
Habañeros on the move,
It’s music to their ears in the backroom.
If there’s money to be made,
And it’s a hundred in the shade and in the backroom,
She’s sentimental like the last
Of the foreigners running past her to the backroom.
And if things aren’t sweet in Mecca
She’ll be begging for forgiveness in the vacuum.

They’re taking pains with California,
And they’re guaranteeing boredom for the monsoon.
And apart from what was offered
There were mothers buying orphans at the auction
Youre much better off in Twos
If you’re coming to see the carnage in the backroom.
Doubled over on the table
I was concentrating harder in the backroom.
Weaving in and out of consciousness
Hiding out behind the entrance to the backroom.

It took longer than expected:
They had difficulty swallowing capsules.
We had a keener nose for trouble
Than the sniffer-dogs at Heathrow –
You’d be trousers down in no time in the backroom.
Almost nothing in the papers…
Told me it happened when they emptied out the backroom.

A great song of incidents.

Professional Poet

The last word, the last hasty swallow

you get up from the table, after your working day
and catch the first bus to the kitchen
you tear off a hunk of bread, inhale the good oven odors
Your body, leaden with weariness, the mold
you cram with rich food
Switch on the set
and inspect the backyard
through another screen
with a wet linger
you flip the pages of the sky.

Nothing will come of nothing.
Clematis tendrils
float in the void … THEY MUST BE TRAINED ON A TRELLIS
your daughter brings you a chair
The table is set, your wife calls
through the window of a parallel world.

After dinner, you walk in the garden
alone in your pressurized space-suit,
stars all around you
even beneath you. Your antennae must be redirected.
the pear tree, newly pruned, requires manure.

Back to the module:
Daddy, what does it mean
to be a monster?
Suddenly, the chain of command dissolves
bits of paper whirling in free fall
untouched paper
and your pencil, ominous as a revolver.