Tuesday Poem: A Life Blighted By Pythons, by Janis Freegard

 



waiting at the bus-stop

all I can think about

is how my hovercraft is full of eels



but it's not, of course it's not

my hovercraft is practically empty

my eels are few



in fact they're not eels at all

but a netload of whitebait

and it isn't even a hovercraft



I've never owned a hovercraft in my life

I wouldn't know what to do with one

it's not even a dinghy



it's a reusable eco-friendly shopping bag

and they're definitely not eels

and not even whitebait



the truth is, I've never been whitebaiting

they're just vegetables

and I only have one thing to say:



your eels

my hovercraft

now, baby, now



Credit note: "A Life Blighted By Pythons" is republished by permission of the author and of Auckland University Press from Janis Freegard's first solo collection, Kingdom Animalia: The Escapades of Linnaeus.



Tim says: I am reading Janis's marvellously entertaining collection at the moment, and I love this poem so much not only because of its intrinsic qualities, but also because of the shared cultural heritage it so vividly evokes. You can catch more of Janis's wit and wisdom in my interview with her, which I'll be posting later this week.



You can read all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog - the featured poem is on the centre of the page, and the week's other poems are linked from the right-hand column.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.