Once I met a bad two-finger type<br>rattling his scrabble bag,<br>whispered darkly through a felt cap<br>(A Frankie Howerd aside)<br>that "Calliope’s a drag queen<br>Let me show you – "
Took his knife to a paragraph <br>of deadly dull prose.<br>Splat on the blue pavement,<br>mispronounced nuns and houndly poesy.<br>Tucked the chopped up pieces in his toga,<br>coughed up a prayer to Joyce<br>and hied to the forum<br>’afore I could speak<br>or raise the poetry police