Mind the Gap

There’s a new Poem on the Underground,
Right next to the ad for the dating app –
Looks like there’s another one, further down,
On the other end of the network map.
But the train’s too full to shuffle along,
So I’ve just this one to read today –
On my morning commute with the weary throng,
Through another week of beige and grey.
So let’s see what it has to say:

As the carriage rattles and brake-shoes feud,
The poem prattles on solitude –
As my neighbours crush me, jolt and seethe,
It says don’t touch me, let me breathe –
As the battered shrubs and brownfields pass,
Its country clubs are a joy of grass –
In a world of stressed anomalies
It offers endless homilies.

I must confess, I’d rather comedies…

Self-Promotion

I slipped a copy of my self-published collection
Into the longed-for shelf
Of the Poetry Library.
Finally, I had overcome the rejection,
To stand alongside some
Of my heroes, my tribe, my key.

Oh sure, one day a snooty librarian
Will pluck-up my root
And toss it away –
But until then, let it be egalitarian
Where a browser can see
What it has to say.

And it isn’t only my guerrilla slim volumes
That compete with the filler
Of our daily round –
I’ve also prepared some placards à la plume
To cover-up the Bards
On the Underground.

But my best reach for well-placed words, I think
Is not to just paste
My flyers on a fence –
But when I fill all the walls with my ink
In the lonely stalls
Of convince.