The trek there
In the ‘foyer’, a large one metre square
I checked the reading of the thermometer
located at the top of the barometer
to find the hotness of the two pm air.
28 degrees Celsius, it showed to me;
I cleared some things out from the front room
to try to lighten the insipid gloom
of unwanted sick, sad history.
I had a shower, got dressed, and then I
went in brisk fashion, past discarded can,
over the bridge where once trains ran
that farming men might watch go by.
By Bailey Park of family play,
I spat out my tasteless chewing gum
in an empty plot where none would come,
by a trolley, in a long lost way.
In Iceland, I grabbed a cold cooked chicken; I knew
it would suffice for at least a meal or three,
packet of butter, some unchilled cans, ah oui,
to assist in getting the evening through.
The trek here
Way back, man in car said ‘bloody hot’; I had to concur,
hardly a hint of a breeze to give the air a stir;
the sun hit again with a force majeure.
By the harsh gradient of the old railway bridge
from where it’s a leg aching four minutes or so to the Croesonen ridge,
and dreams of cold drinks in the ten minute away fridge,
the three carrier reinforced bags pirouette.
I stopped by a lady in puff-pant sweat .
She said ‘I’m with my old man.’ Yet
the husband was some distance away,
watching us, by the wall as if in a play;
I mentioned it was hard-going, this way.
‘It doesn’t help that she’s pissed.’ I thought no care
about the struggle in the hot afternoon air;
I went on up the hill, and left them there.
The trek rest
Further up by own bit of wall of broken brick,
pulled of a piece of chicken leg, rich and thick,
opened a can, hid it in the uncultivated grass,
watching the lazy motorists pass…
finishing my relaxing study of sociology,
back home, purchases went into cold-box technology,
I began to eat my chicken’s biology.
The rest, I heated as a thick stock stew,
and later, much later, wrote my ‘Chicken Haiku’
in memoriam of the poor hen,
now in my bloated abdomen.
Ah, what have I got?
Bone, meat, skin, that’s quite a lot;
switch on, bloody hot.
Addendum
I want that the chickens will get through the oncoming blast
to flap in their nuclear wasteland plot,
and mutate into intelligence, then might look aghast
at the smoke and sun, and mutter, ‘bloody hot.’
