Three Short Poems on the Theme of the Pun

by Sean Haylock (February 2020)

The Tube Station, Cyril E. Power, 1932

 

 

The Fe Line

Seen from the right angle

A train has a weird carriage

Like an arched cat

Scuttling on protracted claws.

 

 

 

Recumbent Poet Follows Trail

Against the bubblegum blue of a summer sky,

A line of white dominoes falls

Or

The airconclave adjourns

With laser-guided fumata bianca

Or

A jet sprays its contrails

The way a can does whipped cream:

Wet floret upon wet floret.

Yes.

Those whitecaps, double file,

Chase themselves across a long enough plain

To let you land upon le mot juste.

 

 

 

Unlikely

I find I always want to add a third I to simile

As though, as tedious mystics insist,

Another were needed to really see

The wonders of the likeness-loaded world.

 

 

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Sean Haylock has a PhD in English from Flinders University. He lives in Adelaide with his wife and son.

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