Two thought-provoking little poems by Mario Relich of Edinburgh, the first making the bold – but perfectly argued! - claim that “No poet’s dead who is still read”; the second about a strange sighting in London.
BAGGING PAST POETS
No poet’s dead who is still read,
so really it’s far too condescending
when you declare at poetry readings
that your special treat will be to read
a ‘dead poet’ before your own poems.
~
Keats’s name wasn’t ‘writ in water’
as he feared: we still read his poems,
‘realms of gold’ for us to explore.
~
Why call him merely a dead one,
as if past poets are game to be bagged
like an iridescent pheasant shot.
KOOKABURRA
It’s no laughing matter
when you see a kookaburra,
oblivious to hawks and owls
displayed beside it,
all chained to their posts.
~
I saw a spangled one
so resplendent and still
that for a split second
I thought it was a giant
kingfisher, looking pensive,
its beak at a tilted angle,
on St George’s Day
in Trafalgar Square.
~
But there the kookaburra
might have wondered
had it been human,
and shackled: ‘What am I
doing here?, this isn’t
Australia, I have nothing
to laugh about.’
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