They’re panic buying poetry!
They stretch around the block.
For Duffy, Heaney, Armitage
they queue around the clock.
They’re set on buying Byron
and Neruda fuels their fire.
They’ve got the hots for Walcott
and the zeal for Zephaniah.
They’re panic buying poetry!
The shelves are running bare.
They’re loading barrows by the tonne
with Donne and Keats and Clare.
They’ve gone all hard for Hardy
and for Edgar Allan Poe.
Cummings keeps them coming
and I don’t know when they’ll go.
They’re panic buying poetry!
They’re stockin’ and they’re hoardin’.
They’re barkin’ mad for Larkin
and for W H Auden.
For Dickinson and Rosen
watch them clamour, hear them shout.
They’re crackers for Baraka
but the poetry’s run
