but it's a challenge to hear each other over his ravings.
My notepad back in action now, info
moving fast between us, while Right Honorable
Gascoyne's switched from Security
Guard to sleuth mode ,
he stands close to my neck, peeps over my shoulder
&
scans
the jottings with blase
l-told-you-so smirks. Soon he mumbles
under his breath
few words he can make out, as if defusing the charge
of my wild script and scrawl
by working the tart gumballs of syllables round and round
in his pouchy checks; he spits, from time
to time, expunging plugs of foul noun-and-verb
toba cco. So I withdraw my little
journal pad, snap
it shut.
Ah, YOU are the sp y,
I say.
Indeed not,
says he .
am INTELLIGENCE.
Silence ...
Two barmen , wheeling their portable
jiffY hooch carts
about the courtyard, traipse into our soup kitchen
armed with raggedy dogeared
yellow manuscripts. Both have
major exposes
in progress ,
says one -
his
only drawbac k, he lacks
the finesse and ni ce ties of my Highbrow
Education; chirps the other,
his book's all set
to go to Press, but he 'll be needing my few moments
assist
with grammar alld selltellce
hookllps
...
And as I edge bac kwards
through the ga te , Ex–
Minister Gascoyne scolds, whenever I do publish
my most
dastardly writings
about their lives, I had better refrain from terming
their fair parlorscape a
Ghetto -
my exit sealed by the razor of his knuckly
long finger drawn, lickety-slash,
across his throat.
