Warranty Expires On Purchase

It doesn't work
and I can't work out quite why.
I won't pay the money for the good stuff
I suppose.
I go and use something that does work.
The gas cooker,
the toaster,
the kettle,
the HiFi......
I get what I need from them
and they don't complain.
The pre-historic values of functionality
aren't dead just yet my friend.

I take comfort in the notion that,
while I can't get online
to spout gibberish
to a dozen strangers
on an obscure weblog,
the chances of me dying
of hunger
or thirst
or not hearing some Johnny Cash,
remain fairly remote.

Up With The Birds

I notice the cat out the corner of my eye.
I'd never seen it before;
it was usually just an old lad sitting,
staring out at the street
from his tiny, impeccable living room.

Up with the birds,
Day after day.

The cat stares manic,
pressed to the window pane
and I follow it's gaze
to a crow on top of a lamp post.

I find it the strangest sight somehow.
A trapped cat straining
for a bird on a wire,
thirty feet in the air.

But then I would.
I have never been a cat.

I saw the old guy again
the next morning,
standing at the window,
squinting at the yellowing pages
of a book in the early daylight.
The cat out of sight,laying in wait for less troublesome prey,
or maybe just asleep.

The cat and the old man don't appear for me anymore.
Maybe they got a new agent and a better gig,
something better than
providing momentary entertainment
for half awake drudges,
preparing to spend their day going slowly mad,
battering their empty heads against their
empty desks for the benefit of
a strange little man who
can't stop scratching
his scalp.

Siamese

I saw them ahead of me

through the gloom and a little distant.

They seemed joined at the hip

and walked as one beneath a small black umbrella.

For some reason the sight of them heartened me.

I tried to remember if I'd ever

walked that way before;

arm round her back, close,

passionate, at eight thirty

in the morning, in the

pouring rain.

Or any time.

It looked to be a cumbersome arrangement

as they made their way along the narrow pavement,

yet preferable somehow

to flying solo.

Closer now and I can hear;

"Gie us the umbrella, gonnae!"

A nasal caw that could scour steel.

"Ah bought that umbrella fur masel, You use yir hood!"

They stop to bicker, hemming me in.

A silent oath is offered for

their self absorbed display

and I work my way to the subway,

reminded and chastened.

To preserve the illusion, one must

Never get too close.