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'. . . poetry-writing is one of the secret vices of the English . . .' John Pudney


Doctor, tramps and toffs with titles
All attest your power to cure.
Can you free my psychic vitals,
From a female’s foul allure?

Yes, in sordid assignations
I’m unable to refuse,
Secretly, I have relations
With, I must admit, a Muse.

Do such surreptitious sessions
Serve to jellify the spine?
Is the price of such transgressions
Premature repose in pine?

Or, will chronic rhyme-addiction
See my scruples drop away
Risking moral dereliction
Ravaged by le vice anglais?

She’s the stoat and I’m the rabbit −
Doctor, lest this end in tears,
Probe my mind, help break the habit
That has warped my wits for years!

I’ll do anything I’m bidden.
Try what therapy you please . . .
Doctor! There's a sonnet hidden
In this pile of EEGs!