DRINKING FROM THE COLD TAP

 

Our old cat has taken to drinking from the cold tap in the bath. I have no idea how he stumbled upon the bath tap as a source of water. He has a new water fountain down stairs but once or twice a day he insists on standing in the bath and drinking from the tap. 

This prompted a poem.

bath time

our old cat has taken to drinking from the cold tap

just now I found him sitting in the bath crying

I turned the tap on and left him to scrutinise the stream of water

as if he had never seen the like before

I am summoned back by his cries

he looks as if he has forgotten what he went into the room for

I'm not sure if I have used this photograph before but I found it recently looking through an old file and was taken by it's energy. 

This next poem is, I suppose, a warning to all of us who live by the sea.

Case hardening is a technique to make the skin of a metal object even harder. 

Climate Change Refugee Camp 7

This was hardly the retirement he had planned

but in the camp you had to learn to rub along

with this ragtag of mismatched humanity

all the people, like him, who had moved to the coast,

before in its death throws the ocean had risen.

Now he just couldn’t tune out the noise of their grumbles

or adjust to the little disappointments each day brought.

He looked up, not a single cloud in the sky

and tomorrow threatened to be even hotter

promising to case harden the iron soil of the exercise ground.

Brooke Sharkey has a new single out. You can listen to it here and order it here.

Here's a cover.

Until next time.