Poolside Paradiso

He's a foam-batterer

his brain hums the same pitch

as a hummingbird's wings.

Likes to dip his moustache in

egg yolk and scramble under the sun

on the lounger by his empty yellow pool.

Powders his toupee with chlorine,

and swims around in the exhaust systems of giant ships.

She is all straight edges,

has not one curve, and sits flush

against flat surfaces;

she was designed by a cubophile

robot who spends Monday to Friday

assembling cars for the Government plant

and re-soldering loose circuits in

artists' and civil servants' heads.

She sets crosswords for the dyslexic

and writes songs on her glockenspiel

for the orcas in Marine World...

The clock at Kidderminster flashes '18'

and the nuns from the convent on

the hill come sliding down on

one hundred bright yellow banana skins.

A moose, seeing them and aghast on hind legs standing, mutters something strangely intelligible for this hour, at which he's usually quite drunk.