In this little box no bird can fly,

Where all children doomed to die

will cry and cry and cry and cry.

 

Put walls up around your thoughts,

Collect everything over which we fought

with deeds and cheese and forks.

 

Close the windows and doors tight,

Clatter down shutters to allow no light

to touch upon our subject’s flight.

 

Tether the animals, subdue the fires,

The context tires as the situation reserves,

Stand up/down against this and that with an impotent ire.

 

Around this theme no clowning,

Like tides against sea defences breaking,

Humour the white horses blotting.

 

Shout out with fraught doubt,

There is a proper way we lay about

our poetic dreams to conformity set.

 

This is where you want to find me,

Preparing to argue over form and technical quality

with fools and laymen and chess-playing pigeons.

But,

My belly fire does not light in any other belly.

There is the real debate, expectation over reality,

Always the loudest expressed in no other way:

‘Welcome to my world build in my mind with me in mind.’