- from The Book of Yelps and Growls
Once upon a time there was a boat packed full of the
elderly and infirm, and it
sailed under a sky teeming
with
winged tigers.
All the fat grandmothers and all
the bald grandfathers and all the diseased cripples
would
point at the sky -
"Look, look, the tigers have
caught the moon!”
“And see how her pregnancy is
bursting into stars and they gobble these up as well?"
Even with their spent eyes they could see this.
One day the tigers came down onto the boat and imposed
themselves on its sick-bed. They marched the
passengers round and round the deck under the hot sun
until the old dried moaners collapsed, buried in their own wrinkles and
bandages.
The people deserved this of course, for
they were weak-kneed and weak-bladdered, and they were
prostitutes and dogs with their emotions.