> Hello Christina,
                  I like these brief snapshots of contemporary city life. I´ve got a bit confused in some places with this one and if you could cast some light on these you´d be doing a kindness to one who often finds himself in the dark. First, I understood the opening `camel cashmere´ to refer to the clothing of the narrator. It sounds like a rather expensive garment and I wonder why someone wearing it is hoaking about in the garbage. It can´t be the same stroke of supernatural luck in the poem, can it, otherwise the narrator wouldn´t already be wearing it when they examine the suitcase? Or had they had an earlier lucky find? Then `abandoned by a council skip´ can have two meanings; either it was dumped on the council dump when the skip was emptied, or the skip is still standing in the street and the suitcase is standing beside it, although if it´s being thrown out, why isn´t it in the skip? And if it´s been dumped when the skip is emptied then `abandoned´ feels to me like an odd word. Later you refer to the streets which suggests that the skip and suitcase are standing there. That would make more sense of `abandoned´ and maybe a reason why the case is beside the skip rather than in it is not important at all. I think I wouldn´t have started to worry about it if I hadn´t  first started to picture the skip being emptied on a dump. Changing `by´ to `beside´ would overcome that unclearness.
    I was interested by the word `trashed´ for condoms. I think of trashing as involving violent destruction but maybe it´s also used to mean just throwing something away. I want to `see´ these as used condoms. Well, I´m not sure that `want to´ is quite it, but you know what I mean. Would `used´, or some delightful adjective that brings the very essence of a used condom before the reader´s eyes, be better here? I hope these rambling queries are useful. As I said, I´m probably envisioning this scene wrongly.



Best wishes,    Mike



> Lähettäjä: Christina Fletcher <[log in to unmask]>
> Päiväys: 2004/03/05 pe PM 12:33:11 GMT+02:00
> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> Aihe: New sub:  Scoop
> 
> Dear All,
> Sorry not to have responded to comments about other pomes yet.  Hope you 
> don't mind if I post this inconsequential bit on nonsense.
> bw
> christina
> 
> 
> 
>                 Scoop
> 
>                 Camel cashmere examines a suitcase
>                 abandoned by a council skip. Clips clip, 
>                 straps strap; Mmm? pucka!  
>                 A stroke of supernatural luck 
>                 this icy morning when you?d think 
>                 nothing?s to be found in these streets
>                 but trashed condoms and dogshit.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>                 christina fletcher
> 
>