Mock Sonnet VII
To be free of off-hand malice we follow the semi-
floating flight of a long-tailed magpie, occasional
whistle of a collar dove's wings, break step at sight
of bottle and dented cans tossed among pathside
nettles; which have us feeling pursued even here
by the same careless malevolence. So we make
ourselves look to the tree-top church of unseen
birds, listen to their vocabulary of tweets and
cheeps, note a bush-hidden robin trickling out
its watery song; and somewhere way above
the repetitive mewl of a circling buzzard
and the rumbling croak of a raven still seeking
the wished-for corpses of the vindictive and
neglectful who have brought us to this end.
Mock Sonnet XXI
On this overcrowded globe, houses
and shacks shoulder to shoulder,
or stacked one atop the others, no space
now to raise high the roof beams,
palms can be flattened on most ceilings
of the new-builds here – designed
for a people with no history, or
for narcissists with their inflated
notion that they are making their own.
Inhabitants of old houses know
that they are but the latest of many
who have passed through, their new
accidents, finger daubs, spills and stains
adding to the patina of future's past.
_______________________
Sam Smith is editor of The Journal magazine and publisher of Original Plus books.
Author of several novels and collections of poetry, he presently lives in Blaengarw,
South Wales. http://thesamsmith.webs.com
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