I wish I could leave this book’s orange spine.
I’ve been Great Fiction’s symbol for too long.
It’s time someone thought up a new design –
a parrot, a panda, a porcupine,
Kylie or Kermit or even King Kong.
I wish I could leave this book’s orange spine.
I’m sick of James Joyce and Ms Gertrude Stein.
Their prose is a mess, the English all wrong.
It’s time someone thought up a new design.
Could make, with my mates, a big chorus line.
Could tap dance down from this shelf with a song.
I wish I could leave this book’s orange spine.
The black tie and tails I’ve got would do fine
(though webbed feet mean I’d just waddle along).
It’s time someone thought up a new design.
Let’s have ‘No Logo’ says Naomi Klein.
Let’s leave a gap where right now I belong.
I wish I could leave this book’s orange spine.
It’s time someone thought up a new design.
(From Creatures of the Inter-Tidal Zone)