Nostalgia Ain’t
Wot it Used to Be
The adolescent brilliance finds itself
Entrapped once more in Charleville. He finds
His genius brusquely returned to the shelf
Of mère and provincialisme. This blinds
Him so much that he cannot see his way
To anything other than graffiti
Of the crudest sort. He daubs a display,
“Shit on God.” It isn’t an entreaty
The poet makes or a demand. Despair
Is ghost-writing with Rimbaud’s teenaged fist,
Reduced to scrawling in the city square
On park benches castratedly while pissed.
This blot is briefly scored out from his head
In splatting moments in a Camden bed.