About Michael di Placido:

A one-time professional footballer, in what now seems like some previous incarnation, I returned to full-time education in 1997, gaining a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English and Poetry respectively. Currently, a house-husband—of dubious merit—and a wannabee freelance writer—hopefully of a higher order. Works in progress: a first, full collection of poetry; a study of Ted Hughes; an exploration, in verse, of Wilfred Owen’s connections with Scarborough; and, lastly, a poem sequence recounting a trial period spent with Manchester United in 1970.

Quelle: poetry p f

Not Quite Birdsong

A butcher where I worked once
was a whistler - you know the type:
aggressive, soulless. I’d stand around
being useless somewhere planning his death.

Days at his block and bacon slicer
rending the air, making his shrill statement.
Clocking on to clocking off -
Colonal Bogy or The Shiek of Araby.

And you could tell he worked at it –
thought he was good. I’d think
of his family, how they coped.
Thought about sympathy cards.

And the other butchers? Surely
he was pushing his luck
next to all those knives and meat-hooks.
Not forgetting, of course, the mincer.

published in Pennine Platform, No. 56