Douglas Scotney Poems

Minor tree-top distractions

make life
...

Any dirty company
that is looking for a government
that will let it in,
knows that any government
...

there's my brother
(with whom I shared my house) ,
who sees the good
and doesn't watch the news;
...

A well-tried tactic of power
is to tempt with no chance of being caught,
then to spill the beans to bring down.
...

We're living in a world that's getting gradually hotter,
in which all alive might die at once,
like cane toads brought to the boil.
...

I make my living
making safe enough
what others do making theirs.
...

In place of 'restaurant'
I suggest we use the name
for the old Spartan custom
of eating the main meal in public.
...

From O.N. skuggi, a shadow,
comes skug, scug,
scoug, scoog and scog -
a shadow and a shelter,
...

Such were the changes around Chaucer's day,
that 'newfangled' was already around;
though the spelling was different,
and probably too, the sound.
...