Air holes

Tea, Biscuits, Shampoo (the
anti-dandruff kind and NOT
conditioner). I’ve said about

the starlings but

these are smaller.

Salt on the roads, salt
on the tyres, salt on the
verge, a tideline of

salt ruins my good shoes:

Salt and also Coffee.

The local authority
stockpiles the salt and closes
a library.

Today’s special offer is

yesterday’s price-hike.

The pound falls
as the estate of man
and the trolleys hang

about the car park and

say not a word, and

something more troubles
me, I don’t know what,
maybe about the Salt.

(After Günter Grass ‘Luft holen’ lit. ‘Take breath’ or ‘Breathe’)

Weather Report

When the summer is caught
by a westerly system, jetstream
like September, and in the damp

paper each editorial fills
with hysterical hopes
for the cricket, the football,

the tennis, the bread and circuses
of nations and the columns of figures
will put you to sleep, when celebrities

fuck openly, swap bodies,
beget dancing chimeras
and under the covers

a camouflaged army breathes
softly nearer, flat on its belly,
when in conversation

the same word is always
withheld from the lips, held
behind the back like

explosives and cellphones
and when you try to swim
backstroke today in the pool

the columns of sky go on up
and up and you know you are
falling – then it’s your move.

No, really. Yours.

After Günter Grass, ‘Plotzliche Angst’