This is a green poem
With a knobble on top
It contains things that are green
Like leaves and cucumber
Runner beans
Perhaps even spinach
Please don’t tell my daughter
Who commissioned this poem
And wouldn’t approve
Of lurking vegetables
Though apparently a pole is
Both necessary and ‘de rigueur’
Not sure what the pole is for
Maybe it helps keep the knobble
On top
We embarked upon a walk
In gentle moonlight, by the Seine
But soon we heard the fatal squawk
To put us off our path – villain!
What hearts had borrowed from the scene
Was shattered, splattered by such mean
And unromantic-minded birds
That flew above us, unobserved
‘Til covered in confusion, rank
With dripping bird lime, clothing stank
And all about us, chaos lay
The puddled blitzkrieg, green and grey
Katherine Shirley 