Besides a mutual liking for Old Speckled Hen–a brew that drinkers in and around Sheffield, England, can draw from the tap and get in bottled form, David and I agree, generally, on poets. (We disagree about the imporatnce of Weldon Kees (I think he’s great), but no two people can have perfect congruence.) What I can say is that David is a fine poet as evidenced by his book The President of Earth, from Salt Publishing, 2002, $12.95, or 8 pounds. 95 p. in wild and wooly England. Here are two poems from that collection that I particularly like:

Horse Chestnut

A negotiation of securities:
semi-baldness of branch
and the leaves still coming down
from the excitements of air,
adding to the controversy
of browning yellow and dull green
before the year issues
its bland final document.

As the covers come on
all over England,
I’m clearing up the conference of summer;
the butt of green comedy,
raking back to bare earth
as the remainder rattle and splash
-broad smears.
From an old song,
fortune’s song
fighting the wind with a rake.

Suburban For Beginners

Lesson I

This is my house. This is my house.
This is my car. This is my car.
This is my car in front of my house.
No, I cannot move my car.
It is in front of my house.

Lesson 2

This is my house. Be my guest.
We like to drink our tea.
We do not discuss the price
of any of our ornaments.

Lesson 3

I am in front of my house.
I am in front of my house.
I am waiting for my wife
because I have locked myself out.

This is my phone. This is my ansafone
answering my phone. This is my wife
saying she cannot come home
because she has lost the car keys.

David and I also share a love for strange things, as per Charles Hoy Fort, author of Book of the Damned, Lo and Strange Talents. More on that subject in future.