towpath conversations

As TH White observed in The Goshawk, if you sit up in a tree, birds don't consider you to be a human, and cheerfully go about their business around you.

You get a similar effect living on a boat...

I've been collecting those towpath conversations that have come along, those thirty seconds of story that you get as the walker pass by. And here is a found poem from them. 

You're being a snob

I'll tell you that

you're being ungodly

and you're being like Lauren

she takes a lot of recreational drugs

like a lot

there’s kids in her class

an island on the Loire

Limonge

wasn’t it Limonge?

we were going down the Danube

it was in France. Let’s see, there’s the Loire

there’s kids in her class make £300

fifteen hours

I worked like a Trojan horse

Mum, how did you fall out with dad?

we were going down the Danube

what do you need a map for

it’s a canal

before they go to school in the morning

Limoges

it was in France and

we were going down the Danube

do people live on these boats

there ought to be

that’s all that I can say

there ought to be rules and regs

there are but

not one of these go to work

not one of them

I worked like a Trojan horse

they’re marginalised

because they haven’t adapted to

the modern world