Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle

This morning I received a copy of a magazine with two of my poems published in it. This has got the year off to a good start; I checked the statistics for 2005 and calculated that I had forty poems published...the most ever in a year. This good news has encouraged me to write some more poems; the first for nearly two months I should think.

MASSAGING THE FIGURES

Our affinity - your letter
A black cat and a skyward fable.

A stretched-limo shiny topcoat
Sly looks from beneath sunken sheets.

A cold comfort warning to all of us
Of bread and circuses
And poets standing on every street corner.

FIRST WORDS TO HIS WIFE

After the new diagnosis...
"Well, it'll make a change,
Somewhere different to hurt."

Since the end of the Christmas/New Year holidays I must have had a dozen phonecalls originating in India from people trying to sell me different mobile phone tariffs. I don't possess a mobile phone though, so it's all a bit pointless.

All the callers were obviously from the subcontinent, but were using English names.

Conversely I've also received a call from an Indian woman speaking with a northern English accent trying to sell me financial services.

It seems that since I've registered for the Telephone Preference Service every call centre in India has my details...another reason for companies to move their operations abroad; so that British laws don't apply to any of their activities.