Getting Away With Things

People get away with things

Because they make good metaphors.

Nobody wants squid ink in their cow’s milk,

Or snake bite in the community well;

The path most trodden is for chattel,

With the cud unchewed

In all four stomachs.

And the voice on the corner,

Swept up in the prevailing wind,

Surely has some sense to breathe

From her unkempt lips.

 

Don’t you hate it, when the umbrella

Span is nearly enough and leaves you nearly wet?

You pull it down fast, like a blind,

And single hairs get yanked in the metal hinges.

The amount of human festooned

In umbrella frames defies belief.

Plenty to restart, when we realise

The personalised clods we stand on

Owe us nothing.

That’s assuming, of course, that Elon

Finds enough introvert fuck-ups

To water carrots for the rest of their lives.

People get away with all sorts of silly things.

Time & Space

Fetch me ten persons aged eighty,

Would you please?

They can be marathon-runners

Or sufferers, wracked by disease,

They can be grandparents (or great-grandparents)

Or the last of their line,

They can be lucid, and sharp,

Or not quite of their mind.

No matter. Go, and fetch me ten,

Then line ’em up like a conga,

Then measure the line; it won’t be longer,

I don’t think, than a few metres

(Maybe more for a wheelchair or zimmer);

But that distance will be equal

To the distance we’ve strayed

Away in time

From the Fifth Crusade.