Dunstable was a bus. He wore his name across his face, which made him very proud. He understood how to be a bus. Stop at bus-stops, and wait while people got on and off. He was good at that part, always looking out for bus-stops and stopping carefully in just the right place.
What he didn't like was when he reached his destination and they changed his name. He thought that was wrong. Why couldn't he be Dunstable all the way there and Dunstable all the way back? It made him sad when they changed his name. One day they changed it to "Out of service" and he had to spend the rest of the day in a big smelly old garage, all on his own.
During the boring bits between bus-stops, Dunstable would sometimes pretend to be someone else. He might be a fire-engine, with a ladder on his back and a big bell ringing excitedly. Or he might be an ambulance, racing around saving people's lives, with his blue lights flashing and his siren sounding. Once, he tried to be a galloping horse, but he couldn't work out how to do the legs.
One warm night in June, Dunstable went to sleep, and in the morning he didn't wake up. The garage people put "Dunstable" on the face of a new bus, and round and round we go.
You do not enter Elderland.
Elderland enters you.
You become an occupied territory,
conquered by advancing years.
You recognise your peers
by mutual bewilderment:
How did this happen? and
Will it all be over by Christmas?
I would like to be best friends with an elephant, so that when I go to see him he would come trundling across the fields looking really pleased to see me. We would play elephant games, and I would feed him his lunch and his supper. At bedtime, I would read to him until he fell asleep. Then I would tiptoe away across the grass until I could no longer hear him snoring.
This poem has no friends
it just begins and ends
but in between, it tries
to meet a reader's eyes
as if a brief connection
might generate affection
This poem then might say
I have a friend, today
This poem has no friends
it just begins and ends
This is where I tried to write
my broken-hearted last goodnight.
I promise you, I really tried,
but every time I tried, I cried.
I'll try again. I swear, I will,
while in my head you're falling still.
Sometimes he liked to wear a disguise, so no-one would know he was a giraffe.
When he wore his Groucho Marx nose, moustache and glasses, the other giraffes
would behave as if he wasn't there. In his giraffe dreams, he would rob banks,
steal the Crown Jewels, picnic with lions, and attend important Government meetings,
always completely unnoticed.
I don't know where Eric found that disguise, thought the zoo-keeper, but as long as
he's happy...
And Eric was happy. He was as happy as Tubby the Tuba. And taller.
"Oh," thought Tubby, "how happy I am!"
I was standing in front of the house when a horse fell out of the bedroom window. He lay on the ground with all four legs splayed out, like a cartoon horse. I went over to ask if he was alright, and he said yes. I asked what his name was, and he said "Jade Banana". I don't know what happened next.
Maybe he got a job as a police horse and worked his way up to sergeant. Or maybe he pulled a rag and bone man's cart. But I like to think that he turned his back on horse jobs and began to write poems that no-one could understand.
Flow my tears, the iceberg said,
hurl my grief across the skies.
I am soon among the dead,
fallen as the oceans rise.
They did their best, my mom and dad.
It's not their fault I turned out mad.
So shut up, Larkin. Hold your tongue.
This be my verse. This be my song.
It was a very simple plan. I would persuade the octopus to go home with me, and then we would learn each other's language. With hindsight, I see that the very simple plan had a very simple flaw. The learning part should have come first. No amount of my incoherent persuasion could cross that language barrier. The octopus seemed quite patient with me, although I began to think it was smiling. I went back the next day to try mime. This time the octopus definitely wasn't smiling.
They were not long, my octopus days.
This is the way we write a poem
write a poem
write a poem
This is the way we write a poem
On a cold and frosty morning.
This is the way we press delete
press delete
press delete
This is the way we press delete
On a cold and frosty morning.
This is the way we start again
start again
start again
This is the way we start again
On a cold and frosty morning.
This is the way we eat some crisps
eat some crisps
eat some crisps
This is the way we eat some crisps
On a cold and frosty morning.
This is the way we watch tv
watch tv
watch tv
This is the way we watch tv
On a cold and frosty morning.
This is the way we write a poem
no we don't
no we don't
This is the way we write a poem
On a cold and frosty morning.