She was a seasonal beast who slept through the summer,

I'd check pockets and sleeves to turn out the drama

though apparently she hadn't any clothes.

 

Apart from the briuses on leaves and on clouds,

the subtle contusions and those screaming loud

as the hammer's brought down on the toes.

 

Each winter she kissed me then seated and started

to rewrite A History Of The Antarctic

in twenty-seven different kind of snows.

 

On our French rendezvous she performed ingenue,

insisting that Seamus can rhyme with Camus

and poetry be transformed into prose.

 

She made the same choices as Mr James Joyce did,

grasping at water, its virtues and voices,

until the passage where she found the ocean froze.

 

At her wheel in the attic she spun mathematics,

spoon-feeding crack addicts - just let them have it.

The law of averages says most will overdose.

 

Employing psychology and underhand qualities

she lobbied the lofty and wanked off wannabees

to the rhythm of a million status quos.

 

Growing the wide- brimmed hat and a paisley cravat,

she'd have worn a moustache but couldn't do that;

she never saw what lay beneath her nose.

 

Having once dined and supped with Beelzebub

she has  thrown it all up, it's unhealthy but

that's the going rate to alternate egos.

 

In her last book she slipped into Cyrillic script,

for a fee you can lift the lid off the crypt

if you wish to watch a body decompose.

 

I trawl the search engines you might find a friend in,

there's no happy ending, I can't find my penguin:

they all look much the same without their clothes.