Portside

Pop goes the weasel!

By John Daniel

I was given weasel coffee for Christmas

the most expensive coffee in the world

it comes from the Vietnam Highlands 

in a gold container.

It has passed through the entrails

of the Vietnam weasel

small dark brown pills, 200 grams.

                          There is a picture of a weasel snarling on the lid,

perhaps because he has parted with his excreta

for nothing.

I remember the Vietnam war

how we circled Honeywell Electronics

where they were making cowpats

which exploded when the Vietcong collected them

to light fires and how Honeywell

substituted plastic for metal splinters

undetectable by x-rays.

We held hands around the Honeywell factory

and chanted and thought we’d won

                          but the cowshit turned to weasel-shit,

the most expensive coffee in the world

and the undetectable splinters of capitalism

entered all our bodies

and passed through all our guts -

                         

                           Pop goes the weasel

John Daniel has published four volumes of poetry, mostly recently Lighting the Fire (Oversteps Books, 2015) and an autobiography titled Grownup War. He lives in Devon, England.