‘PREDATOR’ or

Why drive a vehicle along these roads,

Which has the word ‘PREDATOR’

Emblazoned on it. In large letters,

In a sort-of-aggressive font with jagged edges?

Is it supposed to look like the sharp teeth,

That you might glimpse in the mouth

Of an imagined tiger, or a sudden shark?

Who are you trying to impress or frighten,

When you are only a naked ape

Encased in a movable steel and plastic box?

Not a fierce wild stalking carnivore,

Nor any type of soaring eagle or hawk,

As anyone would see, if you just walked.

But maybe it wasn’t you who

Chose the logo.

Maybe some designer somewhere

Thought that it was a good idea,

Which could sell cars to

Those who believed one scary word

Would designate a striving driver,

On their way up some social pyramid

Or at least some one with

An aggressive intention to ruthlessly rise.

Whilst in others’ eyes

It just shows that

You are a mechanised rat.

 

When you use a plastic claw

 When you use a plastic claw

And kick against friction on the floor

Just to get your socks on

And that’s the morning’s pinnacle.

When the sight of someone walking,

Unaided with sticks or a frame,

Just anyone walking anywhere

And that seems like a marvelous miracle

When putting dead veg on a compost heap

After another restless night’s sleep

Is a epic that’s almost biblical

When your faculties start to fade and fall

One after another like skittles in a line

And you tell yourself that it’s really all fine

Because these things are all cyclical

You could come back another time

As bird or beast or fish or slime

Or go to heaven or hell or nowhere at all

You might then know if myths are mythical.

Waiting for results

Waiting for results

Used to mean

Listening for the letterbox clanging;

And the thud of letters dropping

Onto the doormat.

Some messages still arrive that way

But now it’s more likely to be

Suddenly flashed up on a screen

Flickering suddenly

So you may look twice

To read and believe,

Also it could arrive

With an irritating phone noise

That informs what the diagnosis is,

If the exams are passed

Or who has been elected

And which one fool will rule

Outside

While inside the body

Another disease is named.