Margaret Bradstock – A piece of doggerel

Bradstock LE P&W Humour June 2024

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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing, Special Edition on Humour June 2024.

A piece of doggerel, poem by Margaret Bradstock.


A piece of doggerel

My townhouse neighbour snubs me
bald head averted, sniffs with disdain
as I pass by.
Because I won’t contribute
to the cost of his solar panels.

His dog loves me. A feisty Labradoodle,
she always stops at my front door
to sniff the plants, waits
for her pat and a cuddle.

He’s left on the stairs
nose out of joint, shouting for her
in his twangy accent, dangling
the empty leash.
And I am glad!


© Margaret Bradstock

Margaret Bradstock has nine published collections of poetry, including The Pomelo Tree (winner of the Wesley Michel Wright Prize) and Barnacle Rock (winner of the Woollahra Festival Award, 2014). Editor of Antipodes (2011) and Caring for Country (2017), Margaret won the Banjo Paterson Poetry Award in 2014, 2015 and 2017. Her latest collection, from Puncher & Wattmann, is Alchemy of the Sun (2024).

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