A Curse on my Former Bank Manager

May you computer twitch every time it remembers
money
until the twitches mount and become a mechanical ache
and may the ache increase until the tapes begin to scream
and may the pus of data burst from its metal skin

and just before the downpour of molten aluminium
may you be preening in front of your computer
and may you be saying to your favourite millionaire
yes it costs nine hundred thousand but it repays every
penny

and may the hundred-mile tape which records my debts
spring out
like a supersonic two-dimensional boa-constrictor
and may it slip under your faultless collar and surround
your hairless neck
and may it tighten and tighten until it has repaid every-
thing I owe you

Adrian Mitchell, from “the apeman cometh”
Mitchell died in 2008, an obituary can be found here