book

World Book Day

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

The year his father made him go
as The World According to Clarkson

became imprinted in his memory,
like the silent skid of tyre marks on

wet tarmac. Brown Jacket. Blue Jeans.
White Shirt: top buttons left undone,

the hairy chest wig that spilled out,
curled upwards to a pale March sun.

And then the air of blokey bonhomie
he felt compelled to assume

the banter about funny foreigners
at the back of the classroom,

his arguing in Geography
against the need to go green,

and, of course, the punching
of the dinner lady in the canteen.

We Are Books

Assorted Poems, Selected poems

I am a book.

But one of those books
With an aspiration beyond its station,
A pale imitation of Nabakovian narration.
Characterisation never the strongest,
I’m forever on the longlist,
Always the prize-maid, but never the prize
(And do mind that plot-hole).

You are a book.

The Turko-Polish Technical Dictionary
Of Hydraulic Engineering, to be precise.
You are far from concise
And run into three volumes
With online supplementary material,
(Including downloadable PowerPoint slides).
I have very little idea how to read you
Or whether I should even try.

But still we sit side-by-side,
On the shelf,
Our companionable silence
Speaking volumes.