Days of words
Beginning with birdsong
without words at all from magpies
the word trill forms up in bed
Crows hardly sing –
their unoiled hinges creak
Cockatoos let fly with their squarks
Further words try themselves on
for size and furnish
a running commentary
The day thickens with words
and tonight for sure they will
hop into bed with me
– Bill Wootton
Bill’s days and nights are crowded with words. Here are some of them.

Local Lines features poetry by locals about local and any other matters.
Please submit poems to Bill Wootton at cottlesbreedge@gmail.com

We never got it delivered ourselves
but after school I mounted my Malvern Star
and did a Herald run.
On his lounge chair after work Dad would snap
open The Herald and run his eyes over Garth
and Mandrake the Magician.
He’d know before Mum, in the kitchen,
who’d been picked for the Tiges that week,
then let the rest of news settle on his face.
Things only happened twice a day then.
After morning, evening had its chance
to announce fresh events.
Having caught up with the news
you would put the paper down, refold it
in the wrong spots and later, take the papers out.
Now things just go on happening.
News is one perpetual herald
practically writing itself into copy.

From: Bill Wootton
Note: Bill cops all his news from his iPad & phone now – and of course, The Local!