Recycling

Sometimes
When I accidentally toss a can
Into the rubbish bin
Rather than the recycling bin
And I wrestle with the big question
Shall I retrieve it?
Or not bother?
I find myself pondering
The heat death of the solar system
When one day we and it
Will be vaporised and
Engulfed into an expanding sun
And if we’ve left the Earth by then
And are living elsewhere
I think about the stars
Moving away from one another
At breakneck speed
And the night sky empty, but for a tired moon
No stars
Just total loneliness
Though some say
The Universe will the breath in
And the stars will rush towards a common centre
And the universe will implode
Leaving nothing
Just a tiny dot
That is the weight of everything there has ever been


And I shrug
And leave the can in the wrong bin
Or sometimes I shrug
Retrieve the can
And throw it into the right bin
And sigh


I shrug and sigh
Like the two collared doves
Sitting on the telephone wires
In the lane

How Long Does It Take To Write a Poem?

I’m not yet sure
Let me check the time
Seven minutes to ten
The second hand passing the half-way mark
It’s Sunday morning
The sky’s a grey flannel
Cars rush along the Vauxhall Bridge Road
Heading for the plug hole
Two minutes thirty five seconds so far
Inevitably there will be a redrafting, maybe two
And there’s the possibility that this may never become a poem at all
Just a few scribbled lines in my notebook
And when the notebook is full
Be consigned to the old notebook shelf
Waiting for an epiphany
For the day that never comes
When Indiana Jones finds the room’s hidden entrance
In the rubble and the rocks
Lifts it carefully
Blows the dust from the book’s cover
Opens and begins to read
Eight minutes, twenty three seconds