Recorded Delivery
Dear darling, I know that I said that I'd
be home next week for dinner,
but I'm sitting here, far beneath a tide
of print-offs, growing thinner.
And while I sift through the drifting spam,
where the grammar is inferior,
where legatees in a dreadful jam
type to you from Nigeria,
I'm listening in, and at double speed,
to a flurry of mobile messages,
one each ear – they begin to bleed –
for the terror each sender presages,
with one eye cocked (it's quite hard work, it
keeps you alert, however)
at the stammering camera-work (closed circuit).
Really a grand endeavour.
There are seven million at MI5,
but we're none of us humble cogs –
we're ensuring that freedom must survive,
that we don't go to the dogs –
still, sorry, darling, that I'm late. Remiss.
Kiss the kids. They've begun to grow?
I don't want anyone reading this,
so I've sent it by carrier crow.
