The Teddy boys swear God is just a Ford,
Of a certain model and power and design,
The kind that once when younger, they adored
And clutched as symbols of impassioned mind.
Their mothers know youth is misled
And wrongly given to inchoate curses,
For God ('tis clear, inside their heads)
Is Nordstrom's racks of scents and purses.
More manly poets, having done some living
Are not beguiled by such a trivial joke.
They know tha God is in a womman's giving;
Or, lacking that, a good Havana smoke.

Rudling Frippery
Ballads from the Back End
Jodhpur, 1958