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NIP OUT

 

Just for the pleasure of circuiting the curtained urbs

in the very prime a.m. light

looking for Marmaline, Marmade, for shops

 

with doors opining, yawning out

their glob of slippered whisperers,

he certained that Alice was flat

 

and likely to remain in sheets unawares

for two or three hours; he told the dog

sorry he’d have to put up with the arias,

 

the khoros auroral, of birds’ cheep-’n’-cheep rag

alone; and even he left notes

in his favourite book of crime, Death Log,

 

that he would come soon back.  Among his hates

were incourtesies—they came by the pair

like stinge and terror.  Inkblots he called them, blots.

 

So before he took his pleasure he took some air.

  

Alan Marshfield

  

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