A C Clarke

Glasgow, UK

A C Clarke lives in Glasgow. Her fifth collection, A Troubling Woman (Oversteps Books), came out in 2017. She was a winner in the Cinnamon Press 2017 pamphlet competition with War Baby. Drochaid, a series of poems in Gaelic, Scots and English with Maggie Rabatski and Sheila Templeton was published by Tapsalteerie in December last year. She is currently working on a series of poems about Gala Éluard/Dalí and her circle. The first set of these is due to be published as a pamphlet by Tapsalteerie in 2021.

Poem written 23^rd April 2020

Police dogs

 

The policeman slips the dogs from their leads.

Sleek and well-oiled as athletes they bound

into the exercise field, joy let loose.

 

Joy let loose in a field with only their master

to curb it and he is joyful, knowing they’ll run

to his hand at the click of his fingers.

 

His fingers search the pocket of his high-viz

for a packet of fags. Illicit, but who’s watching?

Only the dogs and they’re used to his ways.

 

They’re used to his ways and in their way they love him.

Trained in police etiquette they’ll track and capture,

not maul. They’ve a nose for lawbreakers.

 

They’ve a nose for lawbreakers but never frame

laws to get broken. All their morality

is police procedure. Their bared teeth caution you

 

proceed with caution. They trust their master

who knows what’s what. Just now they’re thinking

only of play and the smell of the free air.

 

The air is free and wanders where it will

unbothered who breathes it, has nothing to do

with should and shouldn’t. The air is singing

 

with songbirds. The songbirds are free

and nest where they choose. And the wild garlic

is free and flowers where it pleases. But the dogs

 

the dogs are not free except for this one hour

nor the policeman free except for this one place

where he and the dogs pretend there is no law.