Two Poems by Paul Demuth

THE BOARDED UP PARADE  

 

The locals tell me that they also shun  

The nearer General Store,  

Which is much better stocked and better run, 

To patronise  

 

That hovel in the boarded up parade, 

Surviving like a seedling in a crack, 

 

So they can set their eyes on her, 

Whose flowering beauty, arguably, 

Surpasses that of any belle on Earth. 

 

Today, while I was waiting for my change 

For cigarettes I didn’t really need,  

A nudge released me from my trance, 

 

And, turning round, 

I was presented with a pair  

Of amber incisors, 

Reposing on a grey beard flecked with food, 

 

Which, having never seen close up before, 

I didn’t recognise  

Until, when I stepped back, 

My view expanded to include  

Her husband’s pitted nose and reddened eyes. 

 

He handed me a five pound note and said,  

‘You dropped this, Sir.’ 

 

 

 

BIRTHDAY CARD 

 

Between a grocer's door-jamb and a pram  

I ploughed 

 

and caused a bike to buck and even neigh. 

And as I vaulted sideways to elude 

 

the rolling bus’s closing double doors, 

I heard the rider and the mother coin 

 

the same monosyllabic sobriquet. 

When the driver rejected 

 

the card I showed 

because it had expired, 

 

I sorted through a fan 

of all the cards I had, 

 

a winning rummy hand, whose span  

comprised the very sequence of the week. 

 

The culminating date, 

presented with a flourish, mate 

 

(a fanfare one might quip),  

spared me renewed acquaintance with that street.

Paul Demuth - I like the sound of my name ‘Paul’ because it chimes nicely with whoever I am.