whom the gods wish to destroy

Wandered into my feminist cousin Pauline's health food store last Monday as the day was going down.
It's an enlightened sort of place.
Organic I think they call it.
All the vegetables were hand reared or something.
"James," quoth the feminist cousin. "You have arrived."
"I sure have."
"No I mean you've arrived in the sense of fulfilment of your poetic destiny. I want to put one of your poems on the blackboard outside the door."
Well folks.
In the poetry realm, it boils down to a Nobel prize or this.
And since all the Nobel prizes are currently booked for putative Presidential candidates from the American democratic party...
Well.
I guess I have arrived.
"You want one of my poems for public display on your blackboard?"
"Yes."
"Which one?"
"The incomprehensible one where you're trying to be Gerard Manley Hopkins."
Ah.
That one.
It was the work of a moment to scribble it out for her.
The poem where I'm trying to be Gerard Manley Hopkins is called 'daybreak.'
It goes:


'leafen wood enwintered
by a soft ice surplice
fallen forth on timbers in a fronded fretwork charabanc
that neath a network braided
steaming cattle breathed
earthen kingdoms frothed
into dying into life
on with the motley
rejoice
rejoice'


Pauline had spotted my naive attempt to be Gerard Manley Hopkins but she seemed to have missed the homage to Mrs Thatcher right at the end.
No point in spoiling her fun.
I left the poem with her.
At dawn this morning I stole back to her shop to see my name in neon above the door.
I mean in chalk on the blackboard beside the door.
The following met my eyes.


'Wag more.
Bark less.'


This.
This tosh.
Instead of my Mrs Thatcher poem.
Outrageous.
It was unattributed.
Cousin Pauline drove up for work unbeknownst to me and stood at my side.
"Do you like it?"
I stared at her too moved for words.
"Oh right," she murmured. "I told you I'd put yours up. It just didn't seem right in the end. I knew you wouldn't mind. Then this caught my eye. It was on a sign post. I thought it deserved wider distribution."
I was still too moved to talk.
Thankfully somewhere not to far away the ghost of Tuco from The Good The Bad And The Ugly proclaimed with strange high mellifluousness:
"Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"