John Stammers
Ratus ratus Holborniensis
We, down High Holborn
and full up with metaphors, home
after our poetry group loped.
I walked round the bins and recycling skips
and in my, it must be said, heavy
(someone said unseemly for one my age)
boots, stepped on such a soft squidge
that squealed out squeeeeak!
And I, in my not knowing
just what I’d stepped on
did a jig- kind of:
Whoaa! What the?
and the Rat (for it was he!)
reinflated himself
and shot under a bush.
From the safety of the car
we put the whole vicinity under surveillance
and, just when we thought it was safe…,
he shot out from the bush like a missile
over to the bins on the other side of the pavement,
his white tail an after burner behind.
I couldn’t help liking him!
Having never stepped on a white-tailed rat before
it set me to ponder:
were the bins the white-tailed rats of High Holborn’s
domain?
And did our rodentine Odysseus
find himself having his insides squashed up
far, far from home?
And what heavy shod god did he curse
as he made for home
and his white-tailed Penelope?
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Page(s) 49-50
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