Two Poems: 1

Addiction Song

Cold turkey is the only way to go.

Withdrawal isn’t something you can savour.

All smokers, coffee-heads and drinkers know:

cold turkey is the only way to go.

Now I’ve quit you, I dare not risk “hello”:

my resolution might begin to waver.

Cold turkey is the only way to go;

withdrawal isn’t something you can savour.

Herakles’ Other Labour

A lot of us know tales of Herakles

labouring twelve labours for renown.

Known less, his pregnant mother Alkmene’s

majestic child-bed feat: though she bore down,

Eileithiya, birth goddess, crossed her knees;

Nine nights of heaving hell until he crowned.

Epic. But who sings of deeds like these?