Apparently today is World Poetry Day. Here's one I love from the wonderful Lavinia Greenlaw.
Love from a Foreign City Lavinia Greenlaw Dearest, the cockroaches are having babies. One fell from the ceiling into my gin with no ill effects. Mother has been. I showed her the bite marks on the cot And she gave me the name of her rat-catcher. He was so impressed by the hole in her u-bend, he took it home for his personal museum. I cannot sleep. They are digging up children on Hackney Marshes. The papers say when that girl tried to scream for help, the man cut her tongue out. Not far from here. There have been more firebombs, but only at dawn and out in the suburbs. And a mortar attack. We heard it from the flat, A thud like someone dropping a table. They say the pond life coming out of the taps is completely harmless. A law has been passed on dangerous dogs: muzzles, tattoos, castration. When the Labrador over the road jumped up to say hello to Billie, he wet himself. The shops in North End Road are all closing. You can’t get your shoes mended anywhere. The one-way system keeps changing direction, I get lost a hundred yards from home. There are parts of the new A to Z marked simply ‘under development’. Even street names have been demolished. There is typhoid in Finchley. Mother has bought me a lavender tree.
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