I found this bit of prose written on the back of a tram conductor’s pay-in slip. I therefore know it was written in the winter of 1996, I guess I probably wrote this when I was bored in a tram, as tended to happen a LOT. I have no memory of it, or of why I wrote it, other than I expect there was some sort of discussion about vegetarianism at the time, and I have a friend called Zik – knowing me it was in response to a certain incident and I was mocking him somehow. I would have been a vegetarian when I wrote it.

Pulse Magic

A man called Zik, walking down the lane

Held lentils in his hand

He stopped and exclaimed out loud

“Oh, wouldn’t it be grand! –

If these lentils were just like magic beans

And if I threw them over there

They grew and grew and grew and grew

And formed a magic stair!”

Thus saying, Zik the lentils threw

He threw them far and wide

Little red lentils scattered everywhere

In the cold and rain outside

But no sign of magic stair, no growth

Lentils are not magic beans

Lentil magic is not the same

And Zik, despondent, left the scene

A twelvemonth later Zik returned

And found out to his pleasure

The lentils had turned into trees

With more lentil burgers than one could measure

The moral of this exciting tale

Is bold and clear to all

Be patient for the magic which

Is contained in pulses all