Encountered a man
‘And I, too, used to carve and serve up
great failures for myself
in youth,’
said the old flapping man.
I met him on a bus
throttling ourselves south to stay warm.
I had bundled sorrowfully
into a corner hoping for silence and majesty
when this tale-teller
accosted me in peace and forced my ears,
‘I, too, have gazed at that frost…’
(indeed, it was cold on the fields)
‘… and shuddered.’
I dozed amidst his talk,
he cawed like all men do,
I was just a tired old bird like him,
dozed and clucked and dozed.
Rob Yates is moving through South-East Asia trying to make his money stretch. He has just finished a first novel, entitled Trumbling Grandsire.