Poems

At a lucid moment in this otherwise obscure document the author writes: ‘It strikes me that each piece is more or less obvious and I hope I’m not writing in code – suppose there’s no way to tell.’ Never has the shotgun theory had such a devout adherent. If the author can’t tell, what hope has the reader? The best one can wish for Words and Classes is that it is a deliberately nonsensical fraud, concocted by part-time schizophrenics at Outback Press. Here are the opening three lines: ‘an opportunist on crossing out the case: mind the spelling/ on trying to sell credit to he who has none: if I had the time, I’d ask you / to commit your sums you need take your fingers out of your mouth’.