Three Aromatic Poems

Coffee

Sing me dark songs with

A voice of ash and heaven

Wake me from slumber

Petrichor

Unknown civilisations

centuries dead; their last remnants

lie trapped in flagstone and asphalt.

Wakened by welcome summer rain

we breathe the dust of empires.

Davy’s of Dover

Tottering on the stub and clack

My Mum, replete in navy slacks,

ushers us to Davy’s van

to buy us fish and chips.

The salt and fat and ketchup packs    

The chips; the scraps; the batter cracks.

There’s pickled eggs in acid vats,

They’ll never pass my lips!

We sit among the bladderwrack

and feast on grease and haddock that’s

a thruppence ha’penny heart attack

by any other name.

As fragile Kentish weather snaps

we turn our backs on tourist traps.

Acetic vapors call us back

To Davy’s Van-On-Sea.