Welcome to my adventures and experiments in creativity. Where writing is like running: sometimes I know where I'm going, and sometimes I see where the mood takes me.


Friday 27 May 2011

The Tesco Trolleys (POEM)

It’s taken some time to get round to, but here is a new poem derived from the final verse of ‘If It Pleases You More’. Logically, this is what that poem should always have been (or a close approximation at least), but it took reading it out at last week’s Poetry Stanza to get the feedback necessary to make me realise I should have developed a promising theme further rather than tacking together two half-hearted themes. Hopefully the new work here does that promising theme justice.


The Tesco Trolleys

The Tesco trolleys are breeding, gone feral;
lurking in the yards and the bushes,
prowling the council car parks
and scowling at the wait for their keeper.
(He works so very hard
in this new, most modern industry,
earning and yearning to buy
that elusive winning scratchcard).

Mocking his fruitless endeavour
the trolleys jolt and stray further away,
awkwardly rolling their authority
into ever-expanding territory,
a warning to rivals who may wander astray.
The Sainsbury’s gang keep their patch,
and nor will you glimpse the immaculate
crisp-white handle of a Waitrose example.

What of the Icelandicus Trolleyus?
They remain indoors – compliant, sedate –
thanks to the anonymous electronic tags
clinging to their slender metallic legs.

These basket-case beasts.
These un-caged cages on wheels.
Under cover of night they play
out their feuds, deeds unseen
by our prying eyes.
But spare a thought for the weak ones
and their tragic unsolved demise:
upturned and drowned in the canal,
only a grimy blue Tesco handle to show.

2 comments:

  1. One of my favourite poems of the year so far! I like the anarchic image of the scowling 'basket case beasts' taking over the asylum... or at least the deserted car parks, like freakish pack animals.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you very much, really good of you to take the time to comment and offer some feedback (and such positive feedback too). I'm glad you feel the imagery keeps up throughout, and I really feel like the poem was worth slaving over for the best part of a day now.

    ReplyDelete