Greg McLaren

Defamation festival

Order is sending him mad.
He didn’t show,
he was watching respected poets’
florid allusions to dribbling.

He might undertake some
episodes of drug taking.
We were writing everything
in a kind of language

caught in an injunction.
It will be good
to see him promote the memoir,
but it’s badly written.

He feltbombarded,
under threat from a true
reflection of events. So much
of the stuff about me,

it is all bullshit. It is
so inaccurate. It is the absolute
fabrications that are the most
distressing.

When ambition outweighs talent,
he didn’t respond, he cancelled
his attendance. It’s about time
people see respected poets

as the consummate self-promoter.
He was unavailable yesterday
to comment on his chin.
I am really upset

he has betrayed his friends.
It is a vicious, below-the-belt skirmish,
and the live bait was unusual pornography.
There’s nothing unusual

about restraining former poets.
We were at the defamation
festival, and just about
to speak about intoxication.