Note: Backsivore, or Backsie Fore, is a word (or phrase) from the Devon dialect. It means back-to-front.
The sun shines bright with a matt-black glow
each late-night morning in Backsivore.
While stars ask each other which way to go,
thrilled nihilists speak of a meaningful core
Babies rise late to starve screaming mothers
before peeling toast from their jam.
The vegans grab guns and hunt for plump plovers
while Beefeaters gobble up ham,
and the man in the moon puts on her dress
to strum on an an unstrung guitar,
and the song unsung is an ungarbled mess
about unspoken secrets repeated afar.
In the deep-forest city of Backsivore,
each week ends before it begins,
months are short and years are shorter
and decades are the length of two pins.
Centuries remain an untrodden track,
since there’s no known way to measure
the length of elastic componants so slack,
so none of the sums add together.
In Backsivore the losers win prizes,
and petite women wear a large sack
while L and XL are the smallest of sizes,
and a shirt buttons up at the back.
Every brave truth is a cowardly lie
and all bitter lies are sweet facts.
The curtain twitcher is no kind of spy
and the sadists disperse kindly acts.
I’m quite convinced that I’d never would guess
that I’ve said too much, and much less is more,
I hope this is useful, no more and no less…
Coldest Regards
from Lord Backsivore.
©Jane Paterson Basil