The Poem That Walked On Stilts

# This poem can parade in street events Be read at corporate functions after the hors d'oeuvres It overlooks strange sights It sees a heart bleeding among the reeds Something wobbles behind a theatrical mask A stand of thistles grow under a donkey's belly At night the North Star rests on a chimney Like a weather vane, or the tip of a minaret Ideas fly by like geese A glider becomes a hawk with a long shadow Minnie Mouse is writing a suicide note The poem on its wooden perch observes her Words melt off a wall, graffiti blitzed by acid Magpies are serving guests at a garden party A farmer writes a cheque on a cow's side Romanian music blends with a lawn mower The Tiber remembers a Caesar's troubled birth The word contermaschious is skipping through the ferns Tea cups are chattering over buttered scones A pig has a swag of washing for a belly A vet is tilting a needle into a fox Water shines, wild silk at the Linn of Dee A delicious deciduous beech tree's breeding leaves A woman is milking an orchard of its apples Rain spits down the faces of traffic lights