LAWN CARROT

 I walk through the iced streets and cast a wistful stare towards a melted snowman's nose resting in a front garden. 

Then I remember it hasn't snowed here and it's just a carrot on a lawn.

IT'S NOT ALL WHITE

 It's not alright

It's not all white

Snow didn't fall on our town

I'm on a hill

I'm glad, but still,

Kids are all wearing frowns

Wellies were found

Scarves were unwound

Snowball-fight texts were sent

The weather app failed

The snow ship has sailed

Even I feel a sad lament.

RATTLING ON AND ON

I have four alarms 

For four times a day

I'm swallowing pills 

To keep harm at bay

I find it easy 

Fighting this battle

But four times a day

I'm just one big rattle.

BRAVERY AND MAGIC

 When I revisit scenes from my youth the area is smaller. Not just physically so. There's a lack of magic to woods where I climbed trees and hunted conkers and newts. There's no air of mystery to a frozen pond where once I tested fear with wellies. Bravery must hide with the magic

DAYS LIKE THESE

 The days fruit grow steady 

And our heart's a'thumping

Let's all get ready

For a full day of scrumping.

THE ART OF NOISE

Time seems to stop and waits for a battery 

It's an illusion wrapped up in flattery

Nothing can stop the tick-tock of time

We think it stands silent but it's switched to mime.

CORDS

 Today would've been my great grans 125th birthday. I once spoke to her of her childhood remembrances of soldiers returning from the Boer War. I wonder what my great grandkids will take from me, if I'm lucky enough to see them,  to further lengthen times extension lead.

SILENT PASSENGER

 Does a clock ever really stop

When right two times a day?

There's no tick or tock to spot

Time Travel's stowaway.

COVID CHRISTMAS

Has Santa thrown in the towel this year?

Has he cast his hat down whilst depressed?

Rudolph's red nose and a cough spread good cheer

But they also spread positive tests.

Who will help Santa now he's isolating?

This frontline worker needs vaccinating.

RAINBIRD

Where do all the birds go when it's raining?

How do they keep all their feathers dry?

Do they get some avian, wet training?

Or do they tough it out there in the sky?

CLOUDY

 Used to love laying on my back with the kids looking up to the sky. We'd guess fantastic beasts and silly faces from the clouds. They're older now. Only I occasionally look up to the sky and search for those same, fleeting images. They may sometimes drift away, but they're there.

DRAWING ROOM

 The rain hammers home a message in dots and splashes. I try to interpret its coarse code. Through the rainy pallette of my kitchen window all of the colours run and all of the colours dance. I get the impression that it's still a work in progress. A coffee draws me back to bed.

HINTERLANDS

 I lay in the gentle hinterlands of sleep. Small noises become half-dreams. Half-dreams become reality. Within this floating realm I hold all the possibilities of the day and all the impossibilities of my imagination. For a few seconds, as I open my eyes, I lay in both worlds.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR(WAVES)

I was very much Radio 1

and you were so Radio 3

we now both explore, Radio 4,

'cos we love on the same frequency

FORWARD

 

We plant our feet upon the earth

And cast the route we've been

What's a million footprints worth

On a route that we've yet seen?

RECYCLING

 

I once recycled my bicycle

It then became a tricycle

It started out a unicycle.

It remains - philosophical.

CLOCKFACE

 As a kid I lived near a church tower. I had a telescope and zoomed into the clockface. I saw the big, minute hand moving as tiny jerks. I was privileged. Above a flow of christenings, marriages and funerals, only I and the birds saw the church mark the passing of time another way.

SHADOW PUDDLE

 

Does a shadow puddle only get a shadow wet

If a shadow's sopping is it stopping to forget

The shadow puddle it just splashed in causing all this mess

Without a shadow of a doubt it's anybody's guess.

TREAD LIGHTLY

 Rubber tread marks at road bends and junctions.Permanent reminders, last second decisions. Sometimes they're criss-crossed with other treadmarks.Good decisions? Bad ones? Yeats' line pops up, "Tread lightly, because you tread on my dreams." What of the story where the tread ends?

TIME MIRROR

 The tick and the tock of a clock, and the whirring and the purring of a fan. White noise in my dark bedroom. During the night the blades must've caught both the tick and the tock and thrown time into fast forward. 

That must be why there's a grey haired man living in my mirror.

HAIKU 10.12.20

Straight lines everywhere

Overlaying nature bare

Lined, false, thoroughfare

LEGWORK IN PROGRESS

Orthotic Clinic here I come
To fix my left foot it's quite numb
It flops about though imperceptible
Both my legs are asymmetrical

Here's to hoping they assist
For if this footflop still persists
I fear my left leg will one day
Just get so weak it fades away.

MONOPOLY - TIER 3 Edition - Rules

Do Not Pass Go-STAY PUT!

Do Not Collect £200 as

Community Chest is deflated.

No Chance at all.

Just Visiting?

Fined £1,000.

Whitehall-only square

where you can freely trade.

Income Tax is due-no Water Works

Mayfair?

Nothing's fair

Go To Jail.

REFLECTION

Every now and then

I look into your eyes

And see our love again

Then and now inside

CRIMEWATCH

 Overnight, the fog seems to have pulled down the sky, with smokey, dancing clouds just feet above my lawn. They dangle there like silent cat burglars suspended by wire, eager to steal my potted  plants and my good rake, I bet. 

I sip my coffee and watch their crime unfold.

RETURNING MEMORIES

I went to my old school last week

And everything was little

I wished I really hadn't peeked

Our memories are so brittle.

Gone were great big classrooms

The school canteen was diddy

Memory floats in vaccums

Just like me the great big kiddy.

STORYBOOK

 Tell me some stories

I've not heard before

The door is before us

To Life's bookstore.

ONLY THE LONELY

 You can always spot a long-forgotten wall. Joins creak and loosen and the weight it's had to bear has caused it to bow due to lack of attention. Of course, the greatest clue is that nature has returned, new shoots appear amid flaky stone and brick. 

Nature reclaims the lonely.

FIRST CUP OF COFFEE FROM A PROPER COFFEE POD MACHINE

 

from bean to pod machine

a sci-fi way to drink caffeine

WHERE AM I?

 Every moment of every day

I'm farther away from who I was 

And every moment of every day

I'm closer still to who I'll become

I sit in the present and wonder

Who shall I be today?

A 2020 ADVENT CALENDAR

Let'd see what's behind Door 1. 

A Nativity Scene. Ah.

But there's no room at the inn. Strictly speaking all the inns are still in Lockdown. Bethlehem is in Tier 2 when it reopens but Joseph and Mary can't afford the substantial meal needed to enter.