Wendy Cope

Poem composed in Santa Barbara

The poets talk. They talk a lot.
They talk of T. S. Eliot.
One is anti. One is pro.
How hard they think! How much they know!
They're happy. A cicada sings.
We women talk of other things.

in Serious Concerns, faber and faber, 2002 (1.ª edição de 1992)


A nursery rhyme

as if it might have been written by T.S. Eliot

Because time will not run backwards
Because time
Because time will not run
............................................Hickory dickory

In the last minute of the first hour
I saw the mouse ascend the ancient timepiece,
Claws whispering like wind in dry hyacinths.

One o'clock,
The street lamp said,
'Remark the mouse that races toward the carpet.'

And the unstilled wheel still turning
.................................................Hickory dickory
.................................................Hickory dickory
dock

in Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, faber and faber, 1997 (1.ª edição de 1986)