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.’