Saturday, 6 September 2025

CASCADING RATS... (My poem about an early morning incident I witnessed in Birmingham, UK...)

 Cascading Rats…

(MY CARTOON IMAGE OFFERS A POOR IMPRESSION OF WHAT I SAW!)

Rickety, clinking, open-sided truck

Rattled despairingly

Over hunched, viaduct’s bridge,

Which bent, strained and arched clear of a cluster of rail.


Crammed, slotted and aligned,

Flattened cardboard resembled slices of Cornish rock,

Leaning, fragmenting, weathering,

Which for recycling, would be delivered for sale…


Crotchety, slinking, panicking rats

Launched desperately

From rusted vehicle’s bowels,

Which rocked, shook and lurched clear of a sliver of ice.


Diving, flying and thumping

Fattened vermin resembled the ejections of a Roman Candle,

Arcing, twisting, writhing,

Which for survival, with death they would dice…


Pete Ray


Driving over Saltley Viaduct in Birmingham, 

December 2008, tens of rats simply dived from the packed cardboard cargo of the truck in front of me. 


Some hit the road with thumps and ran shocked into the kerb, before scurrying away. 


The driver knew nothing about it…

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