Parc Botanique, Tours.

April 2011

The bear pit is empty

Giant slabs of cracked concrete

Litter and weeds

The wallabies say,

Good day, mate.

Good to hear the mother tongue again

I ask the emu,

Sitting on his own, in the wallaby enclosure,

Feathers all shabby and grey,

Don’t you have any friends?

No mate, he says

Only these bloody wallabies

Thirty Five Minute Poem

Thirty five minutes ago

The alarm clock woke me

It was cold

I put on a tee shirt

Went downstairs, made a coffee

Peered through the blind

It was still dark

Half dreams, thoughts, drifting fragments

I watch the clock

It’s five to

I have to get up at eight

The window-fitters arrive at half past

Thirty five minutes to go

The phrase passes by again

And I wonder if there’s a poem there

Probably not

A Tough One

So, you think you’re hard

Said the tortoise

To the rock

The rock

Kept

Its own counsel

Reflection

As the ball

Hit the bat

The bat

Reflected upon

Its defective

Sonar

New Look

I have a new eye

Through which you look

As beautiful a being

As I ever beheld