Steve Brock: Two Poems

alpha male

I read an article

about chimpanzees

how not all of them

want to be leader

odds are you can get bitten

& apparently some

are content to sit around

& do nothing much at all

at first I felt depressed

& know I wouldn’t

have made it in

the chimp world either

but later I wondered

what about the chimp poets?

if you look around the place

there are plenty of those too.

— Steve Brock

diggers

digging in the backyard

we find a toy soldier

what’s it for, Dad?

I tell my daughter

it belonged

to the little boy

who lived here before us

& I remember

the cries

of the family cat

half starved

climbing the screen door

to re-claim its residence

the $3000 water bill

the unpaid electricity & gas

the phone bill

council rates

credit card bills

& letters from lawyers

that still arrive

the letters from Social Services

& the card

left under the door

asking why

he hadn’t been to school

the holes

in the walls

& the yellow

nicotine-stained paint

I find another soldier

& imagine the scale

of the boy’s battle.

— Steve Brock