5 Poems, by Suzanne Verrall

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There Goes The Neighbourhood

we call next door
the extinct house

full of birds and bees
and dinosaurs
these days it’s such a jungle
the parcel guy
won’t deliver there

when a baiji dolphin or
California grizzly bear knocks
on my door by mistake
I give them directions and point
to the box of boat orchids
on my porch saying
take that with you
when you go would you

and they do

*

Unknown Quantity

a car pulls up
in front of my house
in the middle of the night
and sits

with its engine
still running
long enough to make me
suspect
the new neighbours
are dealing

in the morning
there is a technicolour parrot
painted on the road
it is six metres long
and looks real enough
to fly

I wonder
where the best spot is
to grab hold of
to hitch a ride

*

Once In A Lifetime

you see a country church hall
on a real estate website
for sale
the Sunday school building too

electricity connected but no
water
no doubt it turned to wine
that last time they pushed back

the pews threw open the doors
to the community danceathon
a fundraiser
for our returned boys

the ghosts of whom can be heard
splashing about in the cellar
swimming against the tide
of a claret of unsurpassed vintage

*

The Rock

two children swim in the river
a third swings on a rope

he’s flying through the air
grinning in the sunlight
the dazzling dazzling sunlight
while the audio track plays on

the splashing the shouting the
running water the scream

*

A Question Of Enterprise

the business man is all business
he does nothing without
a view to the bottom line

even the beard he grew
he offered to his wife
as part of the divorce settlement

and she took it

*



Suzanne Verrall is the author of the poetry collection One Day I Will Go There (Vagabond Press, 2022). She lives in Australia, she reads Charles Simic and drinks her coffee black. To view more of her work go to www.suzanneverrall.com