CHURCH’LL

(The Hundred-Year-Old Woman)

 

she smoked a pipe

 

 

Aye, I knew Church’ll

 

(puff)

 

I was ’is mistress

 

We picnicked on the beaches, we

picnicked i’ the groves

an’ when ’e felt frolicsome

(often, too often), ’e

dogged me up the ’ills - o

terrorfied e’d slip

poly like a boulder

split the army ten-pins

’Itler stickin’ ’is tongue out victory-like

hisssss

 

But it was all kiss-kiss

no business

 

(puff)

 

Didn’ enjoy’t, really

for ’e sprayed when ’e talked

(an ’e talked)

like an ’ydrant

like sea-whips

like an ’oppin’ frothy dog

 

(puff)

 

Naught to gawk at, neither -

somethin’ like a squeezed ’alf-asleep frog                                      printable

Green Bottles

 

 

I lived in green bottles

 

To live in green bottles

a man must tempt friends

into a fire oven, shutting

the door, remorseless

 

He must line his children, wife

and scythe them like summer wheat

 

He must slough his clothes

and become an animal

 

He may roll in the dirt

if it pleases him

 

He must then scale the neck

of a green bottle

and stuff himself in, some

chimney sweep

 

This can be very painful

 

He must dwell inside for a time

and then, when the glass is dry

smash it with clinched fists

 

If he lives

he must find another bottle

and begin again

 

He must do this until he dies

or is checked by some onlooker

 

I do not believe in god

 

And yet I thank god

that I live no more in green bottles                                      printable      3 Rolli poems