‘Duet’ and Other Poems

Duet

The expedition’s jinx, breaker of vacuum jars
and laptop hinges, near whom
every drillbit sheared
and every ice core rose contaminated with brown kerosene
and every guyline was a trip hazard,

who threw precision widgets on the fritz
merely by walking past them,
in whose presence the supply plane
overshot the runway – twice – and when unloading
dropped the kilo jar of honey, August’s luxury –

that schmuck – secured his funding for another year.
There’s barley vodka chilling
in the ice-cairn. On the iPod something slow and sad
does battle with the katabatic wind
the battery-life of all our kit gets drained by.



Roadkill Ocelot
...