Poetry Corner

REGULAR Examiner readers will know that Poetry Corner has become a feature on the Feedback page. Because it’s proved so popular, we’re now giving it a page of its own and we’ve got a big name to launch it. It’s coming soon – so watch this space!

No Aeroplanes by Jamie Proud

Stood by the back door having a fag.

Sunshine and bright blue sky. Robin is watching me, waiting ‘til I move from the feeder.

Chaffinch flits between bushes. Bumble bee busy in the hedge. Blackbird carrying dry grass to its new nest in the ivy.

Fat pigeon sat in the ash tree. Hear Clive’s tractor.

First damson blossom.

Slight breeze.

No aeroplanes.

Elsewhere, Jim is coughing and wheezing.

Scared for himself and his family. Alan, the same.

Someone I don’t know is struggling for breath.

Masked nurses trying to help. Exhausted with twelve hour shifts.

Wondering when the ventilators will arrive.

Soldiers delivering supplies. Builders grafting to make the new hospital,

Ready for the expected deluge. No aeroplanes.

Shoppers standing two metres apart.

Queuing to add to their stockpile. Tycoons pleading poverty from their holiday isles.

Wanting my tax to support their airline.

But-what-abouters searching for new problems.

Journalists whipping up doubt and worry.

Fools living happily in their mountains of toilet roll,

Stepping over piles the freezer won’t accept.

When’s the use-by-date? Politicians doing all they can – to avoid embarressment. No aeroplanes.