LINES on the discovery of yet More Floaters in

Lake Windermere

William Lostforwords

I wandered lone, not in a flock,

I paced on high, on hills sunlit,

When all at once, I had a shock,

Lake Windermere was full of shit;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

The ghastly smell 'most made me wheeze.

Continuous as a string of turds,

They stretched across the waterway,

The floaters lay like umber curds

Along the margin of the bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

The odour caught me in its trance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Congealed the nut brown waves in slime:

The shores were drenched in sewage spray,

The pebbles in the sewer grime:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What riches water boards have brought:

For oft, when sick with e-coli,

While life is choked in poisoned mud,

It flashes on my inward eye

That 'tis not down to just a flood,

And that the simple culpability

Lies just with United Utilities