I have just been reading some poetry by my favourite lyricist: Peter Hammill (of Van der Graaf Generator). This is my favourite:

"FLIES

As I opened the back door,
two flies were copulating on the cooker:
I found this very significant.
Late at night, my hand groped
for the aerosol.

They stayed together for the first
few seconds, wings scorched in the sudden fire,
minds disintegrating in the deadly mist.
Quite suddenly, the male tore himself away
from his penis
and dropped to the floor.
She remained, rolling around on the white enamel
and then fell through a crack into the oven.
Perhaps she had been a virgin
and thought this was what always happened.

I ate my egg
with a few pangs of conscience.
Later that night these disappeared
when another fly
shat on me from the light bulb
above my bed."

I wish I could write like this. This is unlike most of Peter's writing, this is quite comedic and it's nice to see him having a laugh for a change.

I like it.

Here's a link to some more poems: [link]

The poems are from his 1974 book "Killers, Angels, Refugees" and is now unfortunately out of print.

Some short stories from his second book: Mirrors, Dreams and Miracles can be found here: [link] and then follow the links to the individual stories.

I'm off to read said stories now, schwing!

James - offering his deviantART services since July 2004 (or thereabouts)