Oliver spent his days
fashioning word sculptures
hewn from the alabaster
of the English language,
using his imagination as a mallet
and his wit, a chisel.
His wife, Denise, sighed
and wished Oliver
would get a move on
in fixing the dripping tap
in the downstairs bathroom.
the Christmas after she left,
he decorated the tree,
not with tinsel and gaudy baubles,
but with crepe paper regrets
of the words he’d never said
it looked a bit shit, to be honest
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.
Ken insisted on
doing all the driving.
he would drive Jane
around the bend,
up the wall
and to distraction
eventually he drove her
to drink
Brian Bilston's Poetry Laboetry 