The Market

Down the alleys they come
Down the narrow side streets
Down the long highways
All with basket and bag.

Into the crowded square
With its stalls of bright
Canopies; parasols.

Huge pans of yellow rice
Chorizo in red sauce
Chickens roasting on spits.


Smell of the olive stall
Olives in oil stuffed with
Citron sharp and garlic.

Vegetables out on
Long trestles; green of bean
Red tomatoes, melons.

Sausage stalls smelling strong
With strings of white dusty
Sausage, sliced shiny ends.
Man in black smock counts change.

Cheese counter full of flavour
Whiff of Roquefort wafts the
Busy air; throng jostling.

Martin Delemare
7th September 2006

I Told You Not to Go

Feeling a little ill, so you are.
Told you not to go to that sushi bar.

We’ve seen it all before you know.
Spy seeking to hide here and so
They sent a very nasty looking fella
With poisoned tip on his umbrella.

Feeling a little ill, so you are.
Told you not to go to that sushi bar.

Stick to Danish lump fish caviar
With no deadly thallium to mar
Your classic good looks and hair so thick
But now you’re poorly, rotten sick.

Feeling a little ill, so you are.
Told you not to go to that sushi bar.

Martin Delemare
20th November 2006

Gateway to a Blizzard

Wind blows strong through gate
Grips all in icy blast.
Fine snow pours over lip of ridge
Moves endlessly and shifts like
The sands, the frozen sands of
A sunless sky, streaming through
Gaps and holes in the walls
To swirl round, over, under
Cold fingers curling round
My frozen wasteland of a heart.

Martin Delemare
2nd December 2004