Whilst sweeping water and mud out of the garage the other day, I came across a book of old poems that was teetering above a murky puddle. I brought it inside and later read some of the things I had written two or three decades ago. I think that I have become a better writer, which is odd, since I was fully engaged with teaching literature at that time. Maybe it just takes a while for the good stuff to lodge sufficiently in the dim recesses of the mind. A few of the poems weren't bad, and I print one below, written in 1994, showing the abiding influence of Mr Larkin.

Sub-urban

Utterly bored
I mow in long cut chains
The grass
And pass, the insect-cluttered
Grove of lemons, limes and
Cumquat
Then kneel and stop the sound.
Here, space and snakes,
Lone-white lilies and
Ragged recovering blackberry
Abounds
And other sounds emerge
Like a layered tide –
The fig-stealing pride
Of currawongs,
And cockatoos on drunken
Turns across the yard.
How hard then, to stop
The thought of being bound
In a sliced-down sphere
Of inexcellence,
Whilst free-life, above and
Around,
Has no self to fear.