WordsOut poems by Godfrey Rust  | collection Welcome To The Real World ← 24 of 59 → | home         

Pleasure

On Sunday afternoon
if I am in a grump
I give myself a treat
and go off to the dump. 

I pack up all the papers.
I pull on my old slacks.
I put the garden debris
into big black plastic sacks. 

Sort the cardboard boxes,
spill a drop of wine,
lots of glass and bottles—
surely not all mine? 

With a sheet protecting
the floor from nasty gunk
I load the jolly Volvo
with a Volvo-load of junk. 

The cheery council worker
waves me on my way.
If I only had more rubbish
I could go there every day! 

Then on Tuesday after breakfast,
I find a sheaf of fun
in stationery bliss
in W H Smith & Son. 

I love the coloured refills,
the plastic folios,
the little packs of labels
set neatly out in rows, 

and when the aisle is empty
I make a furtive raid
on the special top-shelf section
where ring-binders are displayed. 

Sometimes I make a purchase,
more often I just browse,
for sadly there’s a limit
to the filing I can house. 

If I buy a new desk-tidy
or some Lever Arches, say,
then it only means more old stuff
that I’ll have to throw away 

so on Sunday afternoon
if I am in a grump
I give myself a treat
and go off to the dump...