OCCULT RAT-FISH

Occult fish-rats were in short supply

In that cottage by the Lake-shore where

Jenny, a Californian girl with toothache,

In 1969, give-or-take, was advised to drink

Fortified wine. Fortified by C16H16N2O2

This Lysergic acid had been manufactured

In Palo Alto and brought over to England,

People did those sort of things then inspired

By Timothy Leary and the whole anti-Psychiatry

Movement and One Flew Over published in 1962

Kesey, the Dead etc. Anyway we duly did,

Share the homeopathy

And I toddled off to take Jen to the emergency

Dentist who was a very nice Anglolan chap

A supporter of the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola

We talked about the war against the Portuguese and Unita

Which fortunately I knew something about. Jen kept rigidly quiet:

Whilst I made a complete, but unscientific, study of the spiders from Mars

Which a certain south London guy, David Jones, was later to notice

Under similar circumstances or not, I’m not so sure.. Since then the world has

Remained very much the same.

Just me being a touch semi-detached and more than a little open-minded. .

There’s a time and place for everything, as they say……