Poems
by Tony
Dawson
Message in a Bottle,
As I kicked a pebble along the strand,
I saw a bottle floating not far from land
and began humming “Message in a bottle.”
How thrilling if such a thing were true!
It might be from a damsel in distress
or some castaway on a desert island.
Determined to find out, I rolled up my jeans
and waded through the waves to retrieve it.
Clutching the bottle tightly, I struggled
back to shore, excited and expectant.
When I held it up to the light, I could see
it contained a faintly yellow liquid.
Was it urine from Turin or Mississippi pee?
It was then that it occurred to me: the bottle
was an unwritten message tossed away
by a worker exhausted by a bald billionaire.
In a Rut
At dawn, a Yorkshire bar was emptying out.
Some boisterous young lads were laiking about,
ogling and braying at provocative lasses
prancing around and showing their arses.
In nearby woodland, fallow deer formed a lek,
a rutting display by young bucks at the beck
and call of oestrous does that decided the fate
of each of the males as they selected a mate.
Out in the carpark, each of the lasses decided the fate
of each of the lads, departing at once with her chosen mate.
Each doe in the woodland paired off with a buck
and after a brief chase was cornered and ... mounted.
Did you know that “Lego” is a combination of two Danish words “leg godt”, which mean “play well”? Furthermore, the Yorkshire dialect word “laik” that means “play around” or “muck about” or something similar derives from it. The word is also connected to the mating displays of male birds and mammals, a “lek”. Paradoxically, often the selection of males is by the females, as is the case of fallow deer. Oestrous does pick the bucks that will produce the best young.
