Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry

Cricket : eight ways to get out –
the most common caught off a direct hit, just
as in baseball, or softball
second most common, bowled
when the ball strikes the wickets –
the three poles behind the batsmen.

The farmer had been a pretty good athlete in his time
played cricket for his province.
I asked him about it
he was modest ….
needed prompting to extract names.
“Yes, I did play against him,”
him – the leading player of his day
“ what was he like – fast, very fast.”
The farmer said,
I didn’t see the first ball,
or the second, or the third, or many in the first 20 minutes
wasn’t sure what to do
so faked poor timing –
he said the bowler fell for it and
began angling the ball for a catch, a catch behind,
“ a straight one would have bowled me.”

The jemmied door told the story –
no discussion or puzzlement required
no why, or how. Only what.
Single bicycle,
the best of a fleet of six.
Strange the waivers of emotion
outrage and anger morph to relief …
we consider ourselves fortunate –
had got off lightly –
it could have been so much worse –
they must be interrupted.

Emotion becomes motions
police and insurance company
mechanical and factual. Both brisk and perfunctory –
neither expect recovery.

A phone call several months later
police have busted a ring selling hot bicycles,
after they have cooled. Serial number matches.
Come and collect.
The policeman is pleased at the outcome
we sign
then he says
“ I’m required to tell you this
if your insurance company has paid out
you are required to notify them –
then a large smile
but I’m not a policeman …”

It’s often proclaimed :
more statement than observation
the speaker knows they will be wrong,
almost certainly knew they would be,
fervently, if they truly believed :
“ he/she won’t see 30.”
He didn’t –
beer talk prediction was fact.

Mike,
never Michael, plus
mad as a prefix, an additional Christian name
Mad Mike, followed by his surname –
all one word.
Drowned,
years ago, piloting his fishing boat
through a storm,
through dangerous waters, through fear, through warnings
all the other boats stayed ashore.
The last of his 99 lives.
In another of the previous 98
his car slid off the edge of a steep road
teetering on a several hundred foot fall
he claimed out onto terra firma
then clambered back to the car
removed the battery
saying, it was new
and well the price of a decent battery.