he does it with his feet.

A most unusual milkman

is working in our town.

He swallows all the milk before

he puts the bottles down.

A most uncommon dustman

is working down our lane.

He takes the garbage round the back

and throws it in again!

Objection

My feelings towards my little brother

Would soften

If only, once every so often,

He’d blow his nose.

He’s not without style.

Why won’t he, just once in a while,

Do you suppose?

As things are,

I just can’t stick it.

Why can’t he blow it

Instead of pick it?

Horace

The moon was a luminous toenail,

Far ingrown,

When poor old Horace the Hedgehog

Wandered alone,

Humping his heavy hackles

Over the lawn,

Weary as all the time

Before he was born,

Fearful of badgers and foxes

And human feet,

Looking for mice

To eat.

Poor old Horace the Hedgehog

Snuffled along,

Singing against the stars

His own sad song:

‘Some might be glad to wear

A rug of prickles,

But, heavens, from the inside

How it tickles!’

Poor old Horace the Hedgehog

Shuffled away,

Singing his own sad song

Till his dying day:

‘Some might like to be screwed up

Into a ball,

But it doesn’t suit Horace –

It doesn’t suit Horace

At all!’

Afternoon of a Prawn

I don’t mind dawn.

Night comes and goes.

It’s afternoon

Gets up my nose.

I wish I’d not

Been born a prawn.

I’d sooner be

A unicorn

Complete with horn,

But no such luck.

Wouldn’t have minded

Being a duck –

At least I’d quack –

But all around

The salty seas

Prawns make no sound,

But a thin whistle,

A tedious song,

And afternoons

Grow far too long.

Nothing to do

With your see-through shell.

Afternoons

For prawns are hell.

I don’t mind dawn.

Night comes and goes.

It’s afternoons

Get up my nose.

Mirror Poem

If I look within the mirror,

Deep inside its frozen tears,

Shall I see the man I’ll marry

Standing at my shoulder,

Leaning down the years?

Shall I smile upon the mirror,

Shall my love look, smiling, back?

Midnight on Midsummer’s eve:

What becomes of marriage

If the glass should crack?

Finbar

flowers of frost

bloom

on the pane

ice

in the arms

of black trees

glints

Finbar

is born

from his mother’s

womb

by forceps

plucked

like

winter

fruit

his heartbeat

warms      the

fro      zen

day

Just Before Christmas

Down the Holloway Road on the top of the bus

On the just-before-Christmas nights we go,

Allie and me and all of us,

And we look at the lit-up shops below.

Orange and yellow the fruit stalls glow,

Store windows are sploshed with sort-of-snow,

And Santa’s a poor old so-and-so,

With his sweating gear and his sack in tow,

And Christ… mas is coming!

At the front of the top of the lit-up bus