Bill Corney
Sick!
The carcinoma went to the quack.
‘I’ve a soft, smooth, pink patch on my back!’
Then said the quack, ‘My Gosh! My Oath!
You silly, stupid cancerous growth!
You’ve been dieting, it seems to me,
And are lacking radioactivity.
And for your folly and your sin,
You’ve got an outbreak of human skin.
Fortunately I’ve been assured
Your malady can now be cured.
I promise that you’ll soon be healed
When treated up at Sellafield.
They’ll put you on plutonium drips
And wholesome food like fission chips.
Then in a month, or maybe less,
You’ll be your normal hideous mess.
And in future just be sure to stay
On sixty cigarettes a day.
It’s being a dirty, filthy fumer
That makes for a healthy, malignant tumour.
Now on your way, you fresh air freak.
You’ll hear from me within the week.’
‘I’ve a soft, smooth, pink patch on my back!’
Then said the quack, ‘My Gosh! My Oath!
You silly, stupid cancerous growth!
You’ve been dieting, it seems to me,
And are lacking radioactivity.
And for your folly and your sin,
You’ve got an outbreak of human skin.
Fortunately I’ve been assured
Your malady can now be cured.
I promise that you’ll soon be healed
When treated up at Sellafield.
They’ll put you on plutonium drips
And wholesome food like fission chips.
Then in a month, or maybe less,
You’ll be your normal hideous mess.
And in future just be sure to stay
On sixty cigarettes a day.
It’s being a dirty, filthy fumer
That makes for a healthy, malignant tumour.
Now on your way, you fresh air freak.
You’ll hear from me within the week.’
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The