Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour
Cummings, Britain hath no need of thee! You’ve
found your swamp to drain. Religiomaniacs,
fruit salad generals, poets laureate (no friends,
but I defend, like Milton), even your puppet’s
National Thrust, where, naked under heavens,
majestic sticks, in Lethean flood, stick – all are forfeit
to your ‘scientific’ elite: ‘complex contagions in a
thermoacoustic system’ reapplied as insecurity
from starter home to care home, neatly monetized.
The intelligent rich (a moron’s oxymoron) claim
only selfish men may raise us up, return to power. Free
Dom, self-isolation is your viral wet dream, of use,
your voice white noise in a Seeing Room’s drone.
Bo’s cheerful hand rests on your thoroughbred’s thigh.
Robert Sheppard‘s new book is Charms and Glitter (with photographer Trev Eales) from Knives Forks and Spoons. The first part of his transpositions of traditional sonnets, The English Strain, will be published by Shearsman. The third book is called British Standards, from which his versions of Wordsworth come. He blogs about the project as it goes at www.robertsheppard.blogspot.com.
new boots and pantisocracies 