Aught No. 6 - Attkins, The Tale of Toby

Aught, no. 6 (2001)

Neville Attkins

The Tale of Toby

Once primest prigs would ogle old louse
trash with the never failing cantrip-blouze
But if the swinger swindler and foot pad
the decoys and bamboozles at the last go drab:
swindled on a crank's blag or tout's tip
or in bluff-gaff wi doxy gash clap.
A dawg like the slatten get eir ed stove in
And snooze cuff cured in pools of bludgeonin ,
But this sham of slang this slum drawl is for slags
That humbug to old bogus hacks flog.

So recant then but can't, there's a recanter everyday
can't recant cant while there's betrayal to betray.

Author's note: This is a poem composed from those so-called "cant" words (a language spoken by theives and beggars, so dictionary makers would have us believe). This poem employs only those cant words in the OED, as well as two others which just had to be there. The method that I use is more influenced by the OULIPO than by the American avant-garde.