Librarian's curses
                                (to the 'special collections' thief)

May you spin in hell—until Judgement Day
at 33 1/3 r.p.m.s faster than the speed of sound forever
—till you drop. Shrivelled
wee as your stylus-prick that ploughs the rare
vinyl disc l.p. you've denied the turntable of the world
and revolving history. Selfish, genius-confounding
criminal. How do you dare appreciate any man's art?

University library holdings status: missing (years now
and all traces fading) The Poet Speaks—Record 10.
Orcadian poet E. Muir (Kafka's best translator)
reading Muir's own well-remembered"Two Brothers"
and "Desolations", his haunted lilting cadences
recorded for the British Council 1957/58.

May you wander always brotherless and always
desolate in ever tighter more dizzying circles.
Until the voice of the great dead poet deems otherwise
may all your little life's endeavours skip
and scratch across your dearest and most cherished plans.
May all your sin-blackened senses warp, go brittle, crumble
(excepting your eternal, empty memory of them.)
May that pathetic memory forever grate against its groove.

I assign you the unspeakable company
of those of all times who've grasped
unto themselves for their fascist hearts' sake,
treasures of genius ripped from the realm of every heart and
for all time. May you plunder and brutalize each other's
appetites till you too are nothing!

Imagination hates the thought of you.

© Larry Nightingale