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This poem is taken from PN Review 108, Volume 22 Number 4, March - April 1996.

Three Poems David Wheatley


Nothing to Declare
My ears popped as the 737 cleared the tarmac,
unpopped again to the captain's Céad Mile Fáilte two miles up.
My chin had an as-yet-unshaved teenage stubble
to show for itself, and my bags were filled with bad poems.

'Nothing to Declare' then: exchanging one Departure Lounge
for another as simply as I set my watch back an hour…
and when I reached into my pockets for busfare home in Dublin
I found handfuls of marvellous, suddenly worthless coins.




On an Unwritten Poem
Unwritten poems, the only sort I've owned.
Whatever happens to the rest, I've got
Whole volumes of them, dumb of any sound.
...


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