I tuck the blanket around my knees
And contemplate my lovely room,
Where I snooze and read and snooze again
And sometimes decide to write a poem:
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A course on trees at Birmingham Botanical Gardens

For two hours we sit on plastic chairs
Entranced by The Man Who Knows About Trees.
Beauty and science combine when one sees
The chlorophyll green that April wears.
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(“Everything tends to greater randomness.”)

The watch-strap breaks, the car won’t start,
The battery’s dead, the ink runs out,
There’s a nail in the tyre, the printer jams,
Now the toilet’s blocked. “F*** it!” I shout,
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They call my dressing-gown aubergine,
Black is the ink, the paper white,
And the green of the apple tree drips with rain.
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(or “mock orange-blossom”)

From my grandmother’s home my parents took
to each garden of their marriage a cutting
of philadelphus with white waxy flowers
and a fragrance of orange.
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The royals were always gangsters -
Once in power they can paint out the sleaze -
But it peels in the British weather,
Rather cold, rather wet, with a breeze.
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The Queen walks down the steps of St. Paul’s,
No rail, stick or arm does she seize.
I don’t want her job, or her wealth or her brood,
But oh! how I envy her knees!