Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

Brown light at 8 a.m.

Saying, look at me, here I am,

here to remind you, son,

of those who are gone.

Summer too soon.

Soon

enough

the wind will shift

and the birds complain

re. the rain,

complain loud and long,

long and loud and oh, so wrong.

Heat rings a tin

whistle round the Pygpen.

Later, a coma of cows

near the house

will quit the scene

of our sweaty Anthropocene

as I drive to the city

that hardly is a city.

I’m not alone here,

right, Galatea?

I never have been.

Don’t mind me and mine,

the world is full,

that’s the golden rule,

or one of them at least.

The dead are around us this East-

er.

Like you, Galatea.

Sorry, what?

I most certainly am not

hot to trot

like some respectable Hottentot.

I’m my own man,

I’ll have you know. Even if I am

talking to myself at a small-town airport

bar, waiting for a spot

to open up,

to get into my cups

and let you

and your friends in teal and blue

come round and surround

me, here where the dead abound.