Poems

Poles Apart

                     I

May made a snap call for Polling Day,
time to mark man’s hard won right,
women’s even longer fight, for that
fiction called Democracy. Cast away!

Candidates call from opposite sides:
Strong and Stable, Fairness for All.
Empty promises, sit on fences,
fiddle expenses.  Brexiteers collide.

We’d rather vote for TV stars,
sports personalities, latest evictions,
B list celebs (ignore their convictions).
So we got Trump and risk a war.

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Here & There

Here: morning rush hour, stand still,
bands of lorries, cars, vans,
red lines, yellow lines, white lines,
zebra crossing.

Red lights, green lights, flashing lights,
triangular, square and circular signs,
speed limits, no right turn, warning
horns.

Radio 4 recycles the news, challenges
views, racing tips, thought for the day,
drizzle due, masking trails of jetting
Jumbos.

Traffic wardens fix fines, quick snaps,
take notes. Take care, look both ways,
beware, road closed, road rage, road
hogs.

Double Deckers tear down twigs
bulging bikers shoot ahead,
showing off, big miles per hour
horse power.

Giant trucks trumpet and growl,
hungry for fuel. Road works,
traffic cones, concrete, piled up stones,
cats eyes.

Metal box masters slump and scowl,
sat navs plot predictable paths
as dead-end careers slowly
snake.

Close by, apps-laden gadgets lie,
devour invisible missives, urgent
action due. Or join the queue to be
deleted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There:  smiling Samburu range free
shiny muscles, red wraps, beaded
bracelets, braided hair, embrace life’s
cycles.

Groups of kudus graze on grass,
young lions creep up, quickly seen,
their not-yet-prey dart away in all
directions.

A wart hog family scoots across,
eagles glare from regal arcs,
talons poised, patrolling thermal
highways.

Feathered warriors rifles at ready
guard guests from scary raiders, laugh
as baboons scramble and bark,
tails back.

Gangs of giraffes stretch up to tease
tongue-tied leaves in rolling jaws,
swaying necks, creamy nets of crazy
paving.

Tourists stalk in jolting jeeps,
snap away, scan digital display, seek
longer lens, faster flash. Spot leopard.
Stop!

Elephants flap vein-mapped ears, chew,
flick, swish and sway as a satellite
slides beyond the blue, collects their
signals

downloads and draws habitual tracks,
creating corridors, defending fences.
Scientists and Samburu will see them
saved.

 

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