Three Poems

Chaucer on Eccles New Road

Canterbury Gardens comprises a hundred stylish apartments for the modern city-dweller…

– Estate Agent’s Leaflet

From between the lines – yellow, white, stained –
speak, Theseus, speak. Of the great chain of love,
kyndely enclyning. Breathe and speak, worthy knyght.

Requite, dronke Robyn, or stynt thy clappe.
Traffic has a language of its own:
whispers and sighs, the chime of speeding steel,

and prying’s no sin. Inquire of tram tracks,
of Goddes pryvetee, how long it takes to lay.
Gras tyme is doon; my fodder is now forage;

A plea for peace, Oswald reve, but here’s truth:
Til we be roten, kan we nat be rype.
We all become earth, but mortar and brick?

The Pardoner is a court, prefab walls,
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