Four Poems

Pictures

A picture book of
Churches makes clear that the one
Stone for the floor is

A broken Peter.
Overhead vacuity
Lifts up the great dome.

Pecunia non olet

Vespasian taxed
Sewage, laughed at his son’s fuss –
‘Money doesn’t smell’.

It’s true. Human words
And actions can smell worse than
Money’s likely to.

In All Saints

Up in the roof large
Human birds hover, there to
Look after people.

But something is wrong.
They very nearly know that
Angels don’t exist.

Exile

Through youth and middle
Age she missed London, and found
It no comfort when

On a sole late trip
In old age she looked around
And it wasn’t there.