Telepathic Encounter

On the tube
I was thinking up a joke
And when I reached the punch line
The young woman beside me
Looked at me and grinned

Five Famous People Spotted in the British Library

Man, faded jeans and crumpled white shirt
Invented a code
Enabling computers of different races,
Religions and sexual persuasions
To talk to one another.

Woman, frizzy hair back from forehead
Low-slung scuffed leather bag
Wrote a series of mind-altering essays
On cytotoxic triterpenoids derivatives

Man, blue shirt, head down, muddy shoes
Turned conventional wisdom on its head.
Sells out at philosophical conventions
Obtuse and garrulous
Working on novel about Ba Jin Ba Jin

Man, Marcus Turuk (still wearing name badge
From yesterday’s meeting
With professor Huff and colleagues)
Inventor of over two hundred applications
For polycarboxlate cement

Man, Robbie Williams

Balls

I threw you the red ball
You tossed it aside
I threw you the yellow ball
You threw it in the fire
You weren’t in the mood
For imaginary catching

8

A pigeon
On a rainy slate roof in July
Composes a haiku

Under Construction 7

Do you ever feel sorry for inanimate objects?
The time you poured coffee into the cup with the teabag
And had to throw the teabag away?

Remember giving the last rites
To your favourite shoes?

The toilet roll that fell down the pan?

The hammer taken to Gran’s wardrobe.

The love letter that you found
By the bus stop?

Rupert

Today I am
drifting around town
in a small boat
searching for Rupert

Floating along flooded streets
watching the rats
swimming in the evil waters

I am scanning the rooftops
searching for Rupert
Looking for a lad
Stranded on a roof
dressed in red
waving his school bag

I have a ladder in this boat
But have not yet had
The chance to use it

I have rescued seven rats
Who, although very pleased,
Are all crouched nervously
In the stern
Keeping as far from Kenny
As they can

Under Construction 6

Don’t let your bits go to sleep
Be careful with your leg draped over the arm of the chair
Or you’ll stand up
And promptly fall over again
Like you did on Tuesday
Knocking the cup of hot chocolate, drinking chocolate
Over the new, cream carpet
And surprising the cat
Who leapt between Mum’s legs
Just as she was carrying the chain saw
From the kitchen into the back room
Dropping it and inadvertently turning it on
And sawing the TV in half

All I’m saying is
Be careful, that’s all.