THE DREAM-CHANGER AND ME

The comforting white noise of a gently whirring fan. The edifying solidity of that red dot in the dark, telling me my TV is standing by. The gentle shifting of the duvet as my wife repositions her dreams. I roll unnoticed out of bed and make tea for the dream-changer and me.

A BIT OF A STRETCH

though time will stretch & limber up,

the second hand will move

no faster around that dial

than we can speed up

for a missed

bus.

MESSY

We wind a way around the mental maze from Xmas to the New Year. Along the way we gather clues. Tiny scraps of wrapping paper, cocktail sausages that have rolled under the sofa, a faint echo holding the last fizz of a fading party. Clues that we were really here. And really messy!

STORM SWAPS

I wish I'd taken my gazebo down in time,

This wind has blown it from its garden space.

But every storm cloud as we know is silver-lined,

As next doors shed blows in to take its place.

A REAL MILD CHILD

Today is unseasonally mild. So mild that if today was in a cafe it would clear the table when it was finished. It would apologise for bumping into you. It would let you go first in a queue. Not everyday is as mild as today. Let's take the opportunity and try to be mild in return.

FUZZY DAYS

Christmas Day; now the Ghost of Christmas Past. We're into the familiar territory of unfamiliar days. It's Monday, if anyone's counting. It's acceptable to go cold turkey for breakfast, even chocolate orange and beef for lunch. Tin foil's king of the fridge. Leftovers and out.

DECKED MY HALLS

I raise a mug-too early for sherry

to those who once made Xmas so merry

and now reside in places unknown

a place I hope one day I'll be shown.

I raise a mug-too early for wine

to those who once at my table dined

to those who are no longer here

they decked my Xmas halls with cheer.

THE POET'S TRAIL

Old dales and old valleys and new peaks we seek;

carved by those poets of yore,

we rise from their trails to the top just to speak

of what's worn away before.

1 DAY LEFT

1 day left until we realise we've bought too much food. 1 day left until we realise we won't be able to watch all the TV we've circled in red in our Radio Times. 1 day left until we try and be heard above our Xmas jumper. 1 day left until we start to think about Easter eggs.

NOT SUITABLE FOR TURKEYS

The moon's decorated itself in tinseled cloud. Or are the wires to the starlights on the blink? Do the birds know its Xmas? Not as catchy as Bandaid, but I wonder if robins peer through window ledges at themselves on cards and wonder what's going on? 

Turkeys should look away...

DROPPED STITCH

There's a dropped stitch in time, there's an error,

In the fabric of all that we know,

Next time that you look in the mirror,

You'll see where all that time did go.

BIN DAY REVOLUTION

The clouds are fussing around the moon like courtiers to a king. The early air is both box fresh and has that new day smell. Occasional sound of scraping along pavement is Shiftwork Neighbour, playing Bin Day chess. I have revolutionary thoughts of moving my bin to take his King.

BLING DONG MERRILY ON HIGH

The street's now wearing its best Xmas bling. Lights throb behind curtains and blinds, socially distanced for the times in which we live. If I look down the hill it seems as if countless silent parties are doing their best to escape from behind closed windows. Maybe next year...

SWISH

I hear a faint swish of passing traffic from a distant ringroad. Busy lives are swiping in and out of mine. Slowly they merge into a low, vibrating hum. I'm happy to listen for a while but soon I find myself pulled in. If you listen carefully, I'm now a faint swish that you hear.

FIGHTING THE FOG

The fog has mist again and blankets our town. Streetlamps are crowned with grubby halos of smudged light. These angels with dirty faces have more sneer than shine. The morning and the fog hold each other like two, tired, fighting drunks. Both quite unwilling to let the other go.

BELIEF IN A BUTTER LIFE

I can't believe the corner shop is out of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. Unbelievably, I pick up butter. Newspapers pop with periodicals periodically peeking out of their pages. Weekend supplements, glossy mags, proclaiming they'll make the weekend special. Can I believe them?

BARCODES

Friday balances on the weekend. In our street, cars make themselves seaworthy, ready to be carried away on the outgoing tide of a morning commute. Big kids in black blazers walk down the hill. Tiny kids in white shirts walk up the hill. If I squint they become one giant barcode.

HERE BE DRAGONS

Make land on the shores of a brand new day;

stroll along the bluffs,

tread the shifting sand dunes,

gaze inland to wonders unexplored.

Map coastlines, this island of time,

give warnings of "Here be dragons."

Contours, detours,

left for those who come tomorrow.

A BRAND NEW PEACE

Darkness. I'm held in early morning's ambiguity, a sense of everything still yet to be imagined. What's to come has to be built from the memory of what's already been. A brand new day constructed from images of the past. Each day I start the puzzle, looking for a brand new peace.

SCHOOL RUN - 14/21/21 - AM

A boy wears enormous headphones. His head nods in time with a silent tune. A small car tries to get out of the IN way. Mini pandemonium ensues. One person can stop the cogs of the early morning routine. The car reverses out. The boy nods on.

FRAMING XMAS

Windows in our street are plump with Xmas decs. Some are incredibly intricate, others are hand-drawn. Some have flashing Santa's atop brightly-lit sleighs, some have tiny trees with colourful  glitter. Big and small ideas brighten up our street. Framing Xmas one pane at a time.

SWINGS WERE AN OPTION!?

The Earth's a giant roundabout and we're just clinging on

I wished I had found out about the swings that some go on

I'd much prefer to be pushed back and forth in gentle sway

Than flying round by fingertips for each and every day.

THE MARVELOUS MECHANICAL SELF-WRITING POETRY MACHINE

I bought a self-writing poetry machine,

It writes all me stanzas, (and it keeps the house clean)

It always finds rhymes and then when they're written,

Like all famous poets, grows weary and sickens.

HOW FASCISM ARRIVES

Not in jackboots

Kicking down doors

But wrapped in the flag

And amending the laws.

LEANING GRAVESTONES

Time's at the gravestones that lean to and fro

Laying its hand upon row after row

Graves where the living no longer attend

Graves where no flowers in vases descend

Time lends each grave such quiet contemplation

Stones bow their heads at this mute validation.

WORD JAIL

Do not find yourself in word jail;

you're not fed on bread and water,

but fed what you've already read

and what you've already thought of.

THE BROW ON OUR HILL

I look down our street on a hill and realise how little changes through the seasons. A view of brick, concrete, tarmac and slate gives little away. Seasons seem to happen elsewhere. No leaves fall in our street because no trees grow. The brow on our hill may actually be a frown.

PARTY GAME

They try too hard to please 

It's now sounding like whine and cheese

I'm none too refined nor arty

But they definitely threw that party.

There's talk of as many as five

As folks fought to stay alive

We're becoming both angry and bored

Just fall upon your sword.

RISE AND SHINE

I rise and shine like a newly-minted bruise on a boxers face; puffy, sore, and alarmingly colourful as I greet a monochrome morning. The day is still showing in black and white but I know the upcoming feature promises ultra-high definition, surround sound, and the best seat in the house.

CORNER-SHOP XMAS

At the corner shop the Xmas decs are up. 1 forlorn-looking tree, alone on the counter. That's it. Every year, just by the scratch cards. Sparsely decorated, tinsel scarf to keep straggly branches from falling off. I love the little guy. He doesn't know it, but he makes me smile.

SANTA STOP HERE

A homemade, cardboard Santa is  pasted to a front window. It leers out with a rictus smile. I'm unsure whether the accompanying 'Santa Stop Here' sign is placed in expectation or warning. The house is down the hill from mine. I hope he starts from the top this year, just in case.

DAWN'S REFEREE

Born of dedicated rumour

Morning is on its way,

It would've been here so much sooner 

But it stopped off with Night to play.

Born of endless necessity 

Dawn will break up these games,

With a quick scold they both will be told 

Just one of you now must remain.

DREAMS OF SPACE 1999

 I dreamed of cities on the moon

And hover crafts to fly,

Though things turned out less opportune

I still looked to the sky.

I stared and wondered at the stars

As they shone back at me,

And though there's no real life on Mars

It set my starman free.

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

My dog disappears into my black, back garden, straight into a thought experiment. Does he exist if I can't see him? Before I get an answer he rushes from this void, ears flapping, tongue lolling. He appears to accept his absence. If indeed it really is my dog which reappeared...

PACESETTERS

Daylight dips a toe into today. A pile of leaves shiver in a wind trap under a wall. A jogger is a reminder of passing time as he passes my parked car. These clouds will see the dawn but I can't be certain they'll see the sunset. Time jogs on. We are all pacesetters for a while.

SEEN TO BE

What passes for snowfall seems too embarrassed to even settle on the ground. It's blown around absent-mindedly, briefly appearing in the spotlight of a lamppost before scurrying back into the night. Why would it bother? 

Sometimes it's enough to be seen to be. I'll take that.

PAPER CUT

Corner shop. A Wet Floor sign guards an aisle from slippery customers. The cooler light's flickering, or the milk's at a silent disco. A workman with a black eye menaces my imagination with all the possibilities of his shiner. I exit, looking weakly at a paper cut to my finger.

HARMONIES

Now we sing tunes and melodies,

For Now is all that we can sing.

The Future and Past add harmonies; the beat, the rhythm, and swing.

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

The snowy ice has gone. This travelling circus packs up overnight. Only faint indents in my lawn tell of a magical visit. My dog sniffs the air. Can he smell its absence? Or maybe greasepaint? Maybe he hears the distance roar of a crowd as the greatest show on earth moves on.

DOMINOS, SNOW AND ICE

Snow arrived late to our shires. To preserve this tardy gift, frost set it in ice. Footsteps sounds like you're biting through a toffee apple. Cars creep to pull away in my street. Centrifugally slow, battling the surrounding ice. Leaving giant blank dominos where no snow fell.

DRIFTING

There's talk of the lack of snow at the corner shop. We all nod sagely that it's cold enough to snow. We look longingly to the door as if snow might be the next customer. Childhood snow drifts shift silently in our memories. We all agree it could snow later and drift slowly away.

BLACK FRIDAY

Black Friday lives up to its name as I open my back door. Something rustles in a leaf pile. Hedgehogs queuing for overnight bargains? There's a uniformity to the blackness. No hint of what's to come. But I feel smug. I've got 100% off darkness, free delivery in an hour.

SCHOOL RUN - 25/11/21 - AM

The winter sun arrives as a lie. A pretence of warmth. Caught in its yellow, watery glow we all happily shimmer in the moment.

This illusion shatters, however, as three boys fall nosily into shadow. It appears they're fighting over a shoe!

WEATHERING TALK

Talk is of the weather at the corner shop. Is it freezing? Will it rain? Is it going to snow at Xmas? None of us know. It's just our way of connecting which grounds us all in our immediate reality. I leave, knowing that we at least exist, if not the long-term forecast for us all.

SHIFTY

Thursday says, to me at least,

"The weekends chances have increased

We're 1 step closer to the start

Of 2 clear days of fun at heart

We're nearly at that time of week

Where joy and laughter reach their peak"

I say to Thursday,

"Silly friend, I'm working all through this weekend!"

SCHOOL RUN - 24/11/21 - AM

3 kids skip in synchronised happiness. A boy hands out gum to eager hands. A teacher nods to each 'Morning Sir' as if he's head-banging to a slow number. The boy, out of gum, finds eager hands gone. He chews alone, surrounded by wrappers.

SILENT STARES

In the corner shop a man asks for cigarettes. The cabinet's rolled up yet the shopkeeper's hand keeps pointing to the wrong ones. The man says "Left, right, up a bit." I'm reminded of the Golden Shot. I laugh and mention it. Silent stares age me. I Bernie The Bolt out of there.

TEA AND THE NOW

In this ever-present present

There's an ever-present pot

Pouring ever-present tea 

That is ever-present hot

In this ever-present present

There's an ever-present brew

In an ever-present present

There is tea for me and you.

SCHOOL RUN - 23/11/21 - AM

The back of my car is jammed with children and packed with gossip. The talk is of Alexa's hair and her new look. They gripe about their French teacher (though they like her hair), just not as much as Alexa's, 'cos Alexa's mum's a stylist.

CARE TO DANCE?

The old lady who lives alone and always smells of cigarettes and perfume buys 3 packets of fags at the corner shop. I get a whiff of pubs/happier times/much singing/laughing and a hint of snatched, youthful indiscretions. Inhaling someone else's memory, I almost ask her to dance.

LINES OF LIFE

I've swam in Time's wide ocean since forever

My hands have paddled in its ebbs and flows

I think they've spent too long in this endeavour

They've gone wrinkly and it's spreading as it goes.

STOLEN, SILENT WORDS

At my back door my breath is stolen by the cold. I see my silent words disappear in puffs of vapour cloud. I wonder what words were taken? Will I need them today? Will I have to use substitute words instead? Do they join giant word clouds in the sky?

I've no Ikea. Such is loaf.

BONKERS OR SCROOGE?

Three houses in our street have Xmas decs in the window. The correct time to decorate is personal but too early and you appear bonkers, too late and you're Scrooge. I count the houses in our street and divide by two. We'll be house number 54 to put up our window decs.  

Not bonkers at all!

STUBBLED TIMES

My stubble's showing

It's got me thinking

Is my hair growing

Or my face shrinking?

BOOSTED

I am now booster vaccinated! 

If you're pro vaccines, it means I now have less chance of hospitalisation and death from COVID.

If you're anti vax - it means I've just had a system update and can now receive Sky Sports through my fillings! 

SCHOOL RUN - 19/11/21 - AM

Children in jeans for Children In Need. Mufti day. 

I once pushed a bed on wheels up the high street, dressed as a panda, helped by a lion, a tiger and a crocodile. All for Children In Need.

Kids don't put the effort in these days!

🐼🦁🐯🐊

SCHOOL RUN - 18/11/21 - AM

The winter sun sells fake warmth. A boy pulls off his detachable school tie. I wonder if he can tie a real tie? We had to. Tiny knot. Huge knot. Long tie. Short tie. I detach myself from this fashion memory. My school ties have long loosened.

THE HOUR OF INFINITE CHOICE

Nocturnal time keeps its secrets. I'm up before even the rumours of morning. A time when all light is artificial and time itself is just a facsimile of the previous hour. I follow pathways, lightbulb to lightbulb, minute by minute getting closer to the hour of infinite choice.

SCHOOL RUN - 17/11/21 - AM

A car with a giant poppy remembers to let me out. A girl smokes as the frailty of the future is released in unrefined smoke rings. Two boys wrestle in the immediacy of the present, but I prefer school fights from the comfort of the past. 

A STRANGELY BRITISH APOLOGY

The corner shop is a hive of activity, carrying out the illusion that nothing changes. The chiller's being restocked. Bread shelves rise with plump new offerings. I feel guilty for taking a 'new' milk from the front. I apologise for taking it. A strangely British apology.

MY OLD STRING VEST - A THREAD

 I owned a string vest

It wore away,

I owned a string vest

Back in the day,

I owned a string vest

I wore it with glee,

I now own the holes

There's nothing to see.

SCHOOL RUN - 16/11/21 - AM

A boy dawdles drinking an energy drink. At a crossing, waves of blazers part a sea of cars. A speeding ambulance elicits giggles then awe. The English teacher shepherds stragglers through a walkie-talkie as he gathers his personal pronouns.

ALL EARS

A distant siren wails that it wants to be anywhere but where it is right now. A baritone lorry and its soprano airbrakes harmonise to a stop. Adult footsteps are heard but not seen. A stuttering scooter spits and says it best when it says nothing at all. I'm all ears for today.

NEWSREEL MEMORIES

A nascent dawn. Shadowy figures pass under flickering streetlight. They come alive like an old newsreel. Their jerky movements fade as they pass into the dark. Was the street replaying old memories? I wait for a horse and cart to appear but the street forgets as the sun rises.

EVOLVING EYEBROWS

 

In a million years time,

When our forefinger has evolved

Into one giant digit from which we tap our phone,

When one hand has evolved into a giant claw

In which to hold it, 

We will raise our one giant unibrow

And wonder why Autocorrect still roams the earth.

HEATHEN LANDS

Our road has on-street parking. It's plump with parked cars. A flotsam fleet, washed in from a working week. They're now stuck until Monday, when high tide and trade winds drags them off our kerbed shore, blowing them to faraway, exotic, heathen lands...like Kettering or Corby.

THE RECONNAISSANCE OF AUTUMN

Something has hitched a ride from a gentle breeze, turning it into something more sinister. An outrider of winter. The leaves curl at this portent. The grass is fearful to grow. Animals make urgent their plans as the reconnaissance of autumn is nearly complete. Change is afoot.

TIME'S BEDSIT

 If Time slept in for just one day

Would we all think in the same way?

Would we all notice missing Time?

Could we all focus? Would we all rhyme?

Simply put, what would we lose

If Time lay in and simply snoozed?

Would we all exit from a nap

In Time's bedsit? In Time's stop-gap?

GLIDING ON GOSSAMER

Two men in hi-vis jackets smoke on a wall. They're inhaling in health and safety. A cat in the road glides across gossamer. November's fooled some brave soul into shorts. The cat glides on. The distant, passing train is more distant, less passing, more distant, less passing...

BLUEPRINTS

The moon whispers with the clouds and briefly appears as a rumour. The black bunting of the wee small hours is away to another display. Light draws feint outlines of a morning. Rough plans of a new day. Blueprints, redprints, yellowprints. The day is primed. It's now up to you.

SCHOOL RUN - 10/11/21 - AM

Two teeny-tiny hitmen carry violin cases up the hill. A group of girls giggle around a phone. A group of boys throw stones at each other. A girl takes tiny puffs on a cigarette and sucks a few minutes from an undecided future. 

WONDERING SMALL

I missed my wander to the corner shop,

I wonder who took my place?

Would they even wonder whose space they were in,

If they knew that's my place in the queue?

Do they wonder at all,

about wondering small?

In a wonderful world,

there is space

for us all.

CURLING AIR

I watch our binmen disappear down the hill, sliding blue recycling boxes left & right in an expert display of bin curling. Some gently bump walls, some jump in surprise. Now these blue boxes hold nothing but air, which strictly speaking should go in green boxes. 

PATHWAY OF POSSIBILITIES

A man in a black suit and white shirt smokes at a bus stop, his black tie is untied around his neck. Perhaps he's the cabaret for the bus stop crowd? Maybe he's off to a funeral of a friend? Maybe he's just not tied his tie? The pathway of possibilities which is people watching.

WHY A CLOCK NEEDS TICKS AND TOCKS

We need the ticks and the tocks

How else would we know when to stop?

A clock that just ticks on a shelf

Is just Time getting caught in itself,

A clock that just tocks for a bit

Is just Time backing up in one hit.

LEGENDS

I wake from dreams of knights and dragons

to find a world alive,

With 1 swish of a trusty curtain

the legend of colour is born,

Magical back to back gardens roll away

before my eyes,

Set between castles on terraced streets,

It may not be a lot,

But it dreams like Camelot

JURASSIC DARK

I lie half-awake in Sunday mornings peculiar stillness. It's so quiet I could be trapped in amber; a prehistoric fly caught in a fleeting moment, the world existing around me. Being on show for eternity is OK, but I'd rather not do it in old pants and a Bob the Builder t-shirt.

DANGEROUS YAWN

 The breaking of wind

The cracking of dawn

Morning has broken

All I've done is yawn.

PAST THE MUSICAL CHAIRS

Time plays Pass the Parcel

and Time plays Musical Chairs,

And we race round and round unwrapping all our cares,

You may not believe

Time plays such silly capers,

But tell me what will be

when we're out of chairs and papers?

SCHOOL RUN 5/11/21 - AM

Cars queue with smokers cough

as they drop off such fertile minds

from deep inside the earnest-sternest, parent-furnace.

Poured into school they're melded and shaped

when 3pm cools they're returned half-awake

as a rework in progress - no less.

PIPE SMOKE

Autumn draws on its pipe and takes stock,

A sweet aroma of unhurried ideas fill the air,

Earth's axis tilts just a smidge;

a squirrel is urged into gathering,

birds hark south,

trees striptease,

and the light rations itself, not certain

when the clouds may part again.

WHERE IS NOW?

We woke up yesterday 

But we all called it Now,

We know Now is today,

Yet both are fine somehow.

When we wake next morning

That will be Now as well,

Why is there no warning

It's Now in which we dwell?

NO REGRETS

My breath vapourises and floats away from me like a regret. A car is wearing a blanket over its windscreen like a giant eyemask. I tiptoe past so as not to wake it up. Two men stand vaping either side of the corner-shop door as if they're the most regretful bouncers in the world.

THE BORDERS OF SLEEP

I don't remember sleep last night

So softly was its touch,

I just remember lying down

And then not really much.

I don't remember sleep last night

I feel new and reborn,

I think I was sleepwalking, though,

I'm naked on my lawn.

SILENCE

 The whirr-click-whoosh of the central heating system

waking from a deep and ancient slumber;

met with a rising descant,

tap-filling-kettle-gurgles

bubble-bubble-tinkle-tinkles

spoon-stirring-tap-taps

boing-clatter-sink-rattle-slurps.

All's quiet on the morning front.

SCHOOL RUN - 2/11/21 - AM

2 boys swap football cards in the playground. I bet they've not got Luton's Ron Futcher. He and his twin brother Paul were all I needed to complete my Panini sticker album from the 77/78 season. 

An incomplete sticker album, stuck in my mind.

CONDENSED MEMORY

I spy condensed milk at the corner shop, surprised it's still on sale. Memories pour back; drizzling it over nan's jelly, replete with satsuma segments. Preceded by tinned ham and tinned salmon. Sunday treats. Everything was tinned back then. It made the memories last longer.

Thinking back again, I believe it was evaporated, not condensed milk. An easy mistake to make, evaporated milk disappears that much faster, I imagine. 

HOW CHANGE COMES

Snowflake so pretty, snowflake so great,

Each one so different, but watch them mutate

Into snow drifts and blizzards, such powerful weather,

Change comes like this, unique yet together.

SORE LOSER

Yesterday's weather was a sore loser, throwing street toys out of its pram. Recycling boxes are tumbled, jumbled dice. Litter is king. Wallflower leaves refuse to dance now the weather's stormed off. Next doors car's missing. I'm fairly certain he's at work, covered in litter.

PRIVATE

I'm private, me

I like my space

And I'm not one

To show my face

At every show

Or posh event

And in this role

I'm quite content

You won't see me

At open nights

The very thought

Gives me stage fright

I'm happy, me

To be alone

And tap this out

Upon my phone

And just in case

If I become

What I dislike

A famous one

Then I'll retreat

To my own home

And sit and write

All on my own

In fact I could

Quite well be safe

As a recluse

Without a face

Without a sight

Of me out there

I will still write

Just from nowhere 

In fact I think

I should be going

I've not been here

Forget this poem.

APPLE SOURCE

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden

Adam and Eve all the food they could feed on 

Adam and Eve could have eaten roast dinners

But chose to go scrumping for apples, the sinners.

WINDING BACK

I think I've put my clocks back a bit too far.

I've woken up wearing Spiderman pyjamas and my maths homework's due in tomorrow.

AUTUMN'S FASHION

By design, early morning sports a brighter look. My dog's unimpressed by the vicissitudes of autumnal fashion. He'll chase any catwalk. This seasons colours are brown, brownish and browner, with hints of mulch. Some trees dare to wear Leaves St Laurent but its going out of style.

WHEN FRIDAY NEVER COMES

I dreamed a dreamed where I was rich

As rich as rich could be,

I saw in it all gold and jewells

All washed up from the sea.

I dreamed a dreamed where I was rich

I suggest that you do so,

Just steer clear of the name I chose

Poor Robinson Crusoe.

TOTAL WARFARE

Dawn. Yesterday's deluge has cleansed this morning's palette. One tiny point of light remains, reflected in a droplet clinging to a blade of grass on my lawn. Is this all that's left of the sun after its battle with the rain? Blindly engaging in total warfare, my dog pees on it.

MUSHY PEAS

Someone's pouring dried peas onto corrugated iron, such is the percussive pitter-patter of the rain. My dog sits at the back door, thinking hard about mixing with this dark mess of a morning. As my best mate he advises to wait until it stops, or at least until the peas are mushy.

THE LOST KEYSTONE COPS

A streetlamp rapidly flickers. Its surrounding light casts everyone as if they are in a jerky, silent movie. The wail of a distant siren hangs in the air, lost until it finds the right ears. Maybe the Keystone Kops are on the lookout for this very streetlamp and a way home...

THE SPACE BETWEEN US

I'm the only customer in the corner shop. The man behind the counter (English is his 2nd language) cheerily says,"You are between others, yes?" 

Strictly accurate but also profound. We are separated by each other. We measure our lives by the length of the space between us.

FIRST MUG OF TEA - 6.15AM

the tinkle of the spoon

the twinkle of the moon

the only sound and sight so far today

the cupping of the drink

while supping at the sink

as morning gets set up before display.

DREAM CHIMNEYS

The sky blushes at promises from a suggestive early morning. The air is playing Statues but fallen leaves and litter keep giving it away. Dreams fade as smoke rises from the dream chimney. A cat slides under a car. Two cats slide out. That must be the catalytic converter at work.

WANDERING WITH GHOSTS

Oh, to wander 'cross the land of my forefathers

And to walk upon the ground on which they trod.

Oh, to wander next to ghosts of Highland farmers

And to find a land that's truly touched by God.

LEAPING LAUGHTER

I meet a mate at the corner shop I haven't seen in ages. He works nights. He's tired but extends a Covid-era elbow in greeting. Forgetting the protocol I shake his elbow. We both laugh and we're right back in the groove as if we only met yesterday. 

Laughter leaps across time.

SOME SAY

 

What happens after the ride?

Some say we go to the Big Ride

Some say we go to the Ghost Train

Some say we queue for the next ride

Some say we go to the same ride

Some say we all get a FastPass

Some say the fair isn't here

Some say it never was.

ISH DAYS

If this morning was in an ID parade I couldn't pick it out. So nondescript is the greyish sky and the coldish air. An Ish day. Ish days are prefect for Sundays. Not one thing nor the other. These are the days between the exciting ones. Wind down days.

I'm happy(ish) about that.

3D PRINTERS - A WARNING

A 3D printer prints a human brain,

The sentient blob feels lonely and in pain.

A 3D printer prints another brain,

And then it prints a 3D printer...

We do not drown in oceans

Nor in nuclear cloud; Our demise is simpler,

3D printers print out loud.

THE TEMERITY OF THE NIGHT

A new day gossips with smudged stars in ancient skies. Footsteps pass by my window. A disembodied life briefly touches mine. The anonymous steps fade, the stars pass behind cloud. The new day then begins a fresh rumour regarding the temerity of the night and its frosty past.

SCHOOL RUN - 22/10/21 - AM

The sun's rays strike through mountain ranges of cloud. Certain kids are captured in bright light. The heavens are bearing down, opening up. Maybe God, Himself, is speaking?

Nah, God knows the best way to speak to kids is through TikTok.

LOSING MY RELIGION

A tiny woman; swallowed by her vape cloud, resembles an angel, until the charming cherub proceeds to spit on the floor. Then I lose my religion. 2 men laugh as I pass. I join in. Better to be on the inside of a joke laughing out. Somehow my laughter stops theirs. I don't get it.

SCHOOL RUN - 21/10/21

My car's milometer reads 20,000. I don't know why but I want it to stop at this very even number and never change.

Kids skip up the hill.

I can't remember the last time I skipped; that day passed me by.

My car's milometer reads 20,001.

HOME AND AWAY

Running late, I find a familiar world with unfamiliar people. It's Morning+1 and I'm looking for Catch-Up. I don't quite belong here, in someone else's routine, watching someone else's soap opera. The scenery fits but I'm simultaneously home and away with my own neighbours.

SCHOOL RUN - 20/10/21 - AM

Thunder and lightning reverses a bright morning. It's so dark when I get to school I imagine all my old teachers brooding overhead, shouting at me for copying an essay about The Tempest. I'm 40 years late in recognising dramatic irony. 

THE DROPPED PENNY

A penny for your thoughts?

A dropped penny for your dropped thoughts

Dropped on the road not taken

Never picked up

Sinking through the earth

Loose change of our loose changes

A dropped penny for your dropped thoughts

A penny for your thoughts?

SCHOOL RUN - 19/10/21 - AM

A bin lorry holds us in a queue of traffic. Impatient parents swing their cars out , playing dare with fate. I'm expecting a practical physics lesson - What Occurs When Immovable Forces Collide?  -

But they swing by, lesson over - for now.

TUESDAY IMPROV

Tuesday sucked at Improv.

Tuesday: Someone give me a day of the week

Audience: Monday!

Tuesday : Anyone else?

Audience: Friday!

Tuesday: Er. 1 more?

Audience: Wednesday!

Tuesday: Um. Another?

Audience: Sunday!

Tuesday: OK, someone give me a day after Monday & before Wednesday.

WASTED OPPORTUNITIES

Dawn signals to Night to pull into a vow it made to Yesterday. Night rests on the buffers. We are not bound by such a covenant. Free, as we are, to explore limitless light. 

Outside the corner shop a man steps in dog poo, somewhat wasting the start to his glorious opportunity.

SCHOOL RUN - 18/10/21 - AM

 Hundreds of black blazers appear from all directions. Grammatically grouped, these tiny ink blots spread over a playground page. Full-stops stand chatting, dashes race around, and a whole chapter of them are a blank verse on their phones.

CASH RICH

I spy a £2 coin on the corner shop floor. I tap it closer with my walking stick like I'm playing ice hockey. I tap it nearer. It shoots off, landing at a young man's feet. He smiles and politely returns it. He holds the door open as I leave. My mental wealth balance = cash rich.

THE CORNER SHOP WARS

In the corner shop a light flashes fluorescently over the dairy section. Is the chiller lactose intolerant? A man loudly exclaims he's "carrying loads of shrapnel" as he counts out change. Must be a veteran of the Corner Shop Wars (Toilet Roll Division).

We will remember them.

SEQUELS AND MUSICALS

Being late to the corner shop I find  strange characters in a familiar setting. No Little Old Man. No Workman flirting with Shy Woman. Its like I'm in a sequel - Corner Shop 2. Call me old fashioned but I prefer the original. Outside I hear whistling. Corner Shop 3 - The Musical?

SCHOOL RUN - 14/10/21 - AM

A man jogs behind kids on a pavement. His sheepdog runs in front, attached to his waist with a lead. Maybe the headmaster's rounding up his flock? Maybe the dog's taking the man for a walk? Very clever, are sheepdogs.  Oh, and headmasters.

BETWEEN TWO SMILES

At the corner shop an old man who always calls me Pete calls me Pete. I nod a smile. It's got to a point that I don't correct him. A small deception. Worth it. Familiarity and anonymity are rare in a world so demanding. I bathe in misconception, smile again and leave Pete behind.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE

At the corner shop a man enters as a man exits. They see each other,  laugh, apologise and both offer to hold the door open. Both insist the other walks through. They're caught in a very British quantum entanglement. I walk through, happy to deny science as I'm all out of marge.

DOWN DUVET DAY

 I said to my duvet 

"Why the long frown?"

And it said to me

"Well, I'm just made of down."

STIR

Nothing stirs but my tea;

Spoon tinkling mug, sprinkling song,

Bag tossed silently aside,

Steam rises, steam falls.

Legend has it those first teamakers

Used nan's coronation pot and best china,

Calling forth loose-leaf incantation;

I marvel at the old ways,

Lost to us, now.

SCHOOL RUN - 11/10/21 - AM

I spy tiny mountaineers

ascending the hill to school

all backpacked to the max

all emblazoned with kit

some will scale these dizzy heights

some will get lost on the mountain

buy they're all going to learn

about summit or other.

MEMORIES OF THE PUNJAB

The corner shop smells of burning incense as it pumps out a bhangra beat from a tiny, tinny radio. A lady serving looks resplendent in a deep red sari. A piece of a memory of the Punjab right here at the bottom of my road. I don't know if its recalled in celebration or lament.

The fury of the wilder dawn

Nearly dawn. Let's get ready to stumble! A hardy bird punches above its weight, its song boxing next door into silence as they stop cheering the TV. The sun awaits its walk-on routine. I watch the rest of the world wake up from my ringside seat. I've got the bird ahead on points.

THE PLAY BOX

Memory,

that box in the attic

where we get to dress up and can play at long last;

memory,

that box in the attic

where we get to mess up in a play we're miscast;

memory,

that box in the attic

where we seek the caress of the sway of the past.

MIST

Gossamer mist hangs in the air like a gasp

I hardly dare breathe in its presence

Ghost fog peeled away from

the past

Its beauty floats between night and

day

Haunting the space in-between

It flits so briefly in front of my eyes

I cannot be sure it isn't a memory.

THOUGHTS

Gripped, as I am, between the pain relief of a thousand tablets and the mechanics of a dysfunctional back, I stop and think for a while. 

Dismissing the mild euphoria of a  temporary consolation from pain, I consider how lucky I am. I am not being sarcastic, ironic, or whatever literary device explains most of my tweets. I am feeling genuine luck at being able to consider each day as a gift. Yes, it's free of work, and often mobility, but I am unharnessed from the rat race and left to discover a world from the discomfort of my own bed. 

I travel far. Currently I am in Pip's world of Great Expectations and I'm also considering the legacy of Empire via Sathnam Sanghera's excellent Empireland. I arse about on Twitter and love to contribute to Ian McMillan's growing gang of Early Morning Strollers. You don't need to be mobile to explore the world. You don't need working legs to follow Mr Jagger's interest in young Pip or to walk in the size 10 footsteps of the British in India. All you need is a curiosity for the world and a desire to understand people. 

There are far more books and people in the world than I'll ever be able to read and understand. But what I've learned so far is that the more I read, the more people and places I get to see through literature, and even the more times I arse about on Twitter, the more I realise we are pretty much the same. We mostly have the same hopes and indeed the same dreams. We have the same desires and we have the same dislikes. We may wrap them up in our own individual way but our conclusions are the same. We want to understand each other. Twitter can often be the place of the most misunderstanding, yet I find it empowering and it allows me to walk alongside a great range of interesting characters. 

In conclusion, I do feel lucky. I have time to explore, maybe too much time (have you seen the length of this ?) but if you can't find the joy in life from learning something new then who knows, perhaps you already know it all? Perhaps you've learned everything you need to know? That, I would say, traps you more than me. More than my dodgy legs crumbling back and my unwelcome newcomer, diabetes.

Thanks for reading this. I hope you learned something, if only about me. And that's the key. The more we learn about each other, the farther we travel. I'm off to the foothills of India to see what happens next. I'm travelling light.

WARNING NOTICE

I noticed a small notice that I'd not noticed before

This notice that I noticed was pinned to a wooden door

The more that I did notice this small notice that I saw 

I noticed that this notice would be noticed more and more.

SURPRISE!

There's gossip of a new day. That's all it is for now. It's still dark, so it's no more than a rumour that's started. We can feel its presence, though. It's the surprise party we know has been thrown for us. When it jumps out from behind the horizon, act shocked. And smile.

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

A dusty van has 'Clean Me' written on its back doors and something dirty about a girl called Tegan. A graceful cat impersonates a Slinky, pouring itself over a step. An old circus poster peels from a wall. The Greatest Show on Earth. From what I read, that could involve Tegan.

SPEED LIMIT

Don't travel faster than the speed of light

I did once and had a terrible fright

I saw me, before I'd even started

I was in both places before I had departed

The moral I learned - don't break the speed of light

All that's there is here - with  go-faster stripes.

THE BREAD MAN

The bread man's trays are stacked. He works hard by loafing about outside the corner shop. Two men conspire to light each other's cigarettes. Smoke signals success. A hard-hatted man takes no chances in the queue. The bread man rolls out, continuing to earn a crust. 

ANGLES AND CORNERS

In the corner of the corner shop sits a fruit corner in a corner of the chiller. Angles within angles within angles. I catch a copy of the Angling Times in another corner. A cornucopia of papers are angled on display. To a certain degree, I angle my way home, round the corner.

LITTLE LOWRYS

People walk bent and angled against heavy rain. Little Lowrys going to work. A huge puddle conspires with passing cars to ruin someone's day. Kerbside, drains gargle and spit. A wet trail marks corner shop entrance to counter. It's where customers have tried to shake off Monday.

SNARE

Time won't let us 'cross the tracks

For it will always lead us back

Through the rhythm of what's come

Beating loudly from its drum.

We can't find our way from Here

We can't hear through Time's veneer 

What we think are passing sounds

Are just the echoes of Here and Now.

SMOKEY EYED PERFORMANCE

By the corner shop a man draws heavily on a cigarette. I pass through his smoke into the shop's bright lights like I'm on Stars In Your Eyes. "Today, Matthew, I'll be a man buying a paper."

Exiting, I see the burning red embers of a flicked fag, the only clue to his performance.

REVVING

By the unkempt bed-hair of roadside verges, green waves break on oceans of tarmac. Two metaphors collide. Colourful wild flowers, or maybe defiant weeds, catch my eye. Raised on sunlight and petrol, they thrive by a sterile carriageway. Revving, I feed the underdog until sunrise.

SCHOOL RUN

Hundreds of children in shiny, dark, wet coats

Lug learning in behemoth backpacks

Line after line trudge slowly with scholarly aim

Such tiny, hungry ants

Conformity;

Uniformity;

They swarm the sweet centre of school,

Ready, if not eager, to devour knowledge.

HIDE AND SEEK

A timeless game of hide and seek is forever taking place. Day jumps out, revealing itself from behind the horizon. Night giggles with delight at such a good hiding place and determines to use it. Day then counts to a hundred. Night looks to the horizon.

Coming, ready or not!

THE TIN MAN

A man walks down our hill so quickly, with such jerky, clockwork movements, that I look up the hill to see who's wound him up and sent him down. He appears late for something. How very British. Choosing not run but looking faintly silly. Maybe our tin man just needs oiling?

SCRUMPING FOR SUNSHINE

From worthy pip to golden core

There is one great expectation,

Gather up all the sunshine to store

Lead us not to temptation.

We could use the apples we steal

(We could make pure apple cider)

Scrumping for sunshine, there's the appeal,

Memory's friend & outrider.

Knight Times

An old lady is served in the corner shop. Counting out pennies she's 6p short for her paper.  A man, a knight errant, steps forward and offers to pay on his debit card. Under £5, he's charged 50p. That must be the going rate for chivalry these days. I hold the door open for free.

HIDDEN MEMORIES

The hinterlands of a new day;

The sun lies behind the houses,

Out beyond the trees.

My blue/green grass, faintly lit

By solar powered garden light,

A part of the sun to call upon

When the world is hidden.

It guides my way with its comforting, tiny beam of memory.

VERDICTS

Night's stitching is slowly unpicked

Light's itching to seep from dawn's gauze

Balanced, they rest on infinite thought

Balanced, where all the crimes fade

Balanced, where all the new crimes will be made

We sit before both judge and jury

Amid verdicts of meaningless fury

BROADBAND

The debit card machine is 'down' at the corner shop. So is the cash dispenser. "Broadband" mutters the owner. We mutter we understand. I don't. We agree it was a simpler time dealing in cash. I have no cash. We're at the whim of what we don't really understand. Aren't we always?

WINNIE THE POOH

A lady wearing Winnie The Pooh pyjamas is in the corner shop. Maybe she's sleep-shopping. I wonder if it's for honey? A man  flicks through a paper before placing it back. Maybe he's sleep-browsing. I leave the shop, wondering if I've had a walk-on part in other peoples dreams.

LIMERICK JOKER

A limerick got lost in a joke

I once told to some random bloke

Walked in to a bar 

Did a man from Forfar

Nicked the punchline just as I spoke.

LIMERICK RULES

A limerick isn't that long

It's five written lines that are strong 

They rhyme at the start

And here in this part

And finish like this - I'm not wrong!

KEEP BRITAIN TIDY

A child's sofa sits outside the corner shop. On it sprawl a doll and an empty beer bottle. Abandoned; they've outgrown their usefulness. I pick up the bottle to place in a bin as I adjust the dolls position. A man exits the shop, open-mouthed at my efforts to Keep Britain Tidy.

GHOSTFUL EROSION

 We study the hills, we're in awe of erosion

Mindful of space and our wilful implosions

We all shift the lands by the things that we do

For we're all plates colliding - just lost to Time's view.

WE ARE THE STARS

The light from the stars takes a long time to reach us

We're made from that light and that dust

So the light from the stars is just trying to teach us

Slow down

We'll get there

There's no rush.

TEA TIME

 

The kettle clicks

The supper sits

Now with his mug of tea

We've supped the past

We're here at last

Pre-futuristically.

A GRAIN

 Through an hourglass of time

       We all tumble and crawl

           We numbers we fall

             Agrain and agrain

           We numbers we fall

        We all tumble and crawl

   Through an hourglass of time

FADE TO GREY

Morning develops in night's darkroom; as does the anticipation of precipitation, a rumour started by the clouds, who pass it on. A rising sun fails to mix its reds and yellows on this hidden blue canvas. Rumour has it that today's primary colours will fade to grey. Pass it on.

SHADOWS AND MEMORIES

Shapes cast by light and thought,

Interpretations of a restless catch,

Wriggling off baited hooks of definition.

We may stand in fast-flowing waters,

Dreaming of the one that got away,

Yet we are oblivious to the river

As we fish for shadows and memories.

SCRATCHER

A man buys a scratcher at the corner shop. I buy a paper. He puts the scratcher in his pocket. I'll never know if he wins. He'll never know this tweet is about him. We briefly occupy the same space. I see him leave. He goes left. I go right. Life's silent lottery rolls over.

THE VIOLET DOPWING

Transparent Tetris shapes fall into wings;

only the best purples of Scottish-heather

are allowed to radiate from its back,

it's grace and beauty bestowing it

60 days on Earth.

We can only imagine being

allowed such time to shine.

GREEN GRASS

At the corner shop is a man in overalls and a man in pyjamas. They communicate through suspicious looks. Maybe they feel they deserve each others life. They buy their distractions for the day; Overall's takes a paper, Pyjama's some lager. There's a tiredness in both their eyes.

KITE-FLYING PUPPY

A large man struggles to walk a small puppy. The puppy pulls at its lead and veers right then left. One day they'll pass my house, side by side, in harmony. For now, the man stares blankly ahead, looking like he's flying a kite on the ground, as he's pulled along by a tiny dog.

LIMERICK

I once knew a man on a trawler

Who'd fight for each fish, a real brawler

He fought and he fought

For every fish caught

He landed them battered, the mauler.

KEY POINTS

A key to a missing clock

A missing clock without a key

Working well together

But not

Separately.

RED CAP

Neighbours on their step. He can't find his cap. She doesn't know which one he means. The one he always wears. She's none the wiser. He thinks she washed it. She didn't. She thinks he left it on site. He didn't. They sigh. They kiss. He drives off.

 

It's red, if you see it.

SPECIAL GUEST STAR

It's the hottest ticket in town. Summer returns as a special guest star in today's production of autumn. The touring company of clouds have moved to another venue. The wind plays no role, merely an understudy. A word perfect performance, spoken in sunlight, illuminates the stage.

SHIP IN A BOTTLE

My grandmother once had a ship in a bottle

Until on a weekend I caused it to topple

The ship was in bits and I started to panic

Until I renamed all the pieces Titanic.

LOST LANGUAGE

I try to speak as a rose smells in bloom

I try to speak as a laugh fills a room

I try to speak as a child's smile is cast

I try to speak as the wild seas are vast

Language, like nature, is ever evolving

Tongue-tied to tradition, yet nature's absolving.

LEAVES

 

Some leaves, they crash too early to the ground

And now, they're crumpled up and have turned brown

Some will hang on into deep mid winter

Fade upon the branch without  a whimper

We do not get to choose the leaf we'll be

We find ouselves all fixed to the same tree.

SOME LIGHT ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

The sky never got the pavement's memo. Both wear same colour grey. A man in headphones nods along to music, or is it a very lively Today programme? Light begins the morning puzzle by first doing the corners and edges. People are flat-packed shadow. Some light assembly required.

CLOUDS

A man vapes in his car as he waits outside my neighbour's house. Faint light from a streetlamp is enough to turn the car into a giant snow-globe as the self-propelled mist makes futile efforts to escape. My neighbour exits, also vaping, and the two seem to float away on a cloud.

SEPTEMBER

September creeps in under cover of darkness. The thief in the night becomes a squatter. The birds feel something's afoot, the trees have started to drop their guard. The lawn will soon stop growing, in realisation that change is underway. September. The rag n bone man of nature.

COMMUTE

The sound of distant, passing trains. Carrying bleary-eyed commuters to weary-eyed London. So desperate to avoid eye-contact, they read papers, check phones, hack coughs, and snore. 

One of the biggest cities in Europe, soon to be filled with people who don't like people.

DREAMS

We are the dreams of febrile minds

We are the streams of we, entwined,

We are the thoughts of such suggest

We are but taught by life, expressed.

FLOW

You are home today; though it was only

yesterday you left. Time begins, again,

to start to flow in the same direction.

EXCITEMENT

I spy a police car prowling the street on my hill. I quickly shut the curtains - but then I remember I haven't done anything - I open them again to peer through a slot and I catch the car disappearing over the brow. This passes for excitement where I'm from. I calm down with tea.

TOUCH

I dare not touch this early daylight,

It's so fragile I fear it will break.

A bat, it might be a bird,

Is born knowing morning's tensile strength.

It circuits my garden in widening loops,

Pushing the light to its limit,

Knowing that to be recycled

Is to be born again.

MULTIPLE CHOICES

A life filled with multiple choices

B rings songs filled with multiple voices

C all the tunes written

D on't fear that they're hidden

E ach chorus is sung by and for us.

HALF LIFE

 3 drunk men at 6am

Sure is quite uncommon

From when did all the boozing stem

I'm sure they've now forgotten

Maybe late out on the town

Toasting some success

Or coping with life bearing down

By early booze excess

3 drunk men at 6am

Half-cut

Half-life

Half-told.

MOON MUSIC

Shining with the eternal gift of light

From a sleeping sun, the moon pulls gently

On a supplicant world

A concertina of tides play out,

Senescent sea shanties are sung

The Sirens will sing as they must;

They can but lure the sailor,

They cannot charm the moon.

LIMITLESS

A ring of fresh light shuffles nervously around my bedroom curtains, a soft border to a new day. In this hollow of retreating night I re-imagine myself in this new world. I can be whoever, whatever I choose . Limitless options abound. I choose 'thirsty' and make tea. 

I panicked.

THE KING OF RECYCLING

That wooden fence has spent more time as a tree

That brick wall has spent more time as wet clay

That clay was once wet plants and animals

One time - light jumps from fence to brick to clay

Time is the king of recycling

The king is dead - long live the king.

HOWL

The howl of the Afghans we've

Left at sea

In a dutiful, leaking  boat

They don't scream for money

We've taken their honey

These refugees hardly afloat

ALMANAC

 Summer begins to glide into memory

As we reach the hinterlands of autumn

Nature consults with her almanac and

Turns the page on another season

Daylight is falling back in on itself

Wooden trails of smoke lead us by the nose

Long bright colours fade into well-earned rest.

CENTRED

You and I lie in bed;

Waiting for gravity to work,

To plunge us into the Earth's core - to subsume us.

We wait for gravity to play its trick;

But we're not there, you and I,

We're not where gravity wants us to lie.

We are already at the centre of the universe - looking out.

THE SPEED OF THOUGHT

 I would not travel at the speed of sound

I could not stand the boom

I would not travel at the speed of light

I have not got the room

I will travel at my own pace

I find it more genteel

Sound and light fill my headspace 

Where the journey's more surreal

MASKS

They fall away, they do

The masks we wear all day

We wear them all, anew

For what we dare not say.

One falls each time we meet

Each countenanced fresh trial

We peel away, we seek

Each subtle truth, each smile.

CHAINS

I can still hear an alsatian bark

Where once stood the street to my school

And there stood Cerberus

Guard to the scrap yard

We tiny men of Heracles

Dared closer, closer to its salivating bite

By tiny, giggling girls

He was chained

For a brief, glorious time we were not.

VAPOUR TRAILS

I love vapour trails. Temporary exotic sky maps that remind me of stressed-out clouds. Celestial games of noughts and crosses that hang briefly in space. Lines of life. Do the tiny planes wonder about we invisibles on the patchwork ground? There's plenty of room for thought.

POWDERED TIME

The petals will fall to slow down Summer rides

And crumbled to dust they'll become powdered time 

A cleaner patina, an imperfect rhyme

One imperfect wave on an effortless tide.

MATINEE

A smattering of security lights

blink on

blink off

as dark shapes idle

down the hill in our street.

Like nervous actors

they briefly shine.

Illuminating homes,

briefly secure.

At the corner shop they're met with standing ovations of light,

before matinee idling home.

THE TIPPING OF SUMMER

 Morning's greying mist.

Heavy as the soppy sponge

that pulls wet birds

from a lathered sky.

Where once we were treading

water in overnight pools

of insomnia and sweat;

now change is afoot,

time is at hand.

Autumnal fingers flex

for the tipping of summer.

STARLIGHT

In my road - Victorian builders once sealed off views to an everlasting sky, tightly packing hard terraced housing into soft hills. My satellite dish look to the stars through a tiny gap in an urban sky. Most starlight falls upon the roof. I'm comforted by that which makes it.

WAVING

I glimpse a corner of unassuming sky from behind my bedroom curtain. I wonder how many countless stars lie inside this tiny patch. I wonder of other worlds, of other me's, watching back, from other bedrooms. Are they wondering the same as me?

I wave at myself. I wave back.

BOX

Cars in my street have yet to wash away

on the sucking tide of the morning commute

Little kerbside boxes

outside larger boxes

drive to other boxes

strive for bigger boxes

We fit the boxes to succeed

We tick the boxes we're decreed

Yet one box is all we'll need.

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

Orange is the new black. The sun nudges its way to the edge of a dark horizon. This never-ending peat fire bursts from the silent soil of a grateful sky. It will travel its arc, a story of pure light, rising and falling as breath, each spark used to ignite a fresh day.

DROPLETS

The last overnight rain gently wipes its feet on a roof. Ancient slate shines beneath the sheen. A terracotta chimney pot is buffed to a dull glow. A TV aerial ripples in expectation. Black dots jostle and settle along its lines, semi-quavering into recognisable droplets of song.

PUDDLE

Only a memory of rain remains. Limpet slugs stick to my garden wall. Starlings dance at the hop to such à la carte delights. Clumps of weeds tease the grass, clenching drenched fists in mock triumph. I make tea. My dog drinks from a puddle. We're both very happy with our choices.

FATE AND A MISSED BUS

The sky hangs ripe with cloud, stories yet to be told. A woman returns for her brolly, missing the bus. A man sits on the bus,  dreaming of a life he and the woman should have - if only she could read his mind. Such dreams and clouds float by as fate clings to a different day.

SENSELESS

First mug of tea since Covid robbed me of my taste and smell: we seem separated, as if the glass window of the care home keeps us apart, our hands pressed against either side, desperate to feel something, but we only recall a memory of comfort in a senseless time.

WALLFLOWERS

A gentle, almost apologetic, tap-tap-tap of light rainfall, containing all the colours for a thirsty garden in each clear drop. An abandoned watering can, hoping for the next dance, then the next dance, sits brooding with the rest of the wallflowers. A very British shower.

THE FAILURE OF VINEGAR

Early morning mist is slowly absorbed by blotting paper sky. Light winds rehearse dances for the thunderstorms to come. Garden path weeds pop their heads up between cracks to see if it's safe to emerge. Spraying them with vinegar has failed. I crave chips. I settle for tea.

BOILING POINT

At the corner shop. A discarded Wet Paint sign. Morning must have finished its colouring in. A man in a boiler suit frantically scratches at a scratch card. He looks at boiling point. He sighs and buys another. I buy tea and leave, scratching my head. I'm off to boil my kettle.

PARCHED

Heat waits in a clear sky, above a parched land. I embrace cool air as a long-lost friend. I water my colourful plants with a hose. It works better under pressure than me. The plants and I know we'd both wilt without one other. We take only what we need and not a drop more.

MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN

The overnight heat was just the warm-up act for today's sun. Everyone's in shorts, like primary school, albeit with questionable tattoos, cleaner faces and hairier legs. The corner shop's out of ice and ice-cream. Not cool. This Englishman walks his mad dog before the midday sun.

HOURGLASS

A sense of a promise of impending, arid heat. Birds hop and flit in an effort to finish early. The cool grass accepts it'll soon be straw. A tiny water feature will be an oasis for the tiny traveller. The mirage of time is broken as the desert sand in the hourglass returns home.

SILENT NIGHTCLUB

My heavy bedroom curtains resemble a pair of thick-set bouncers in my own silent nightclub. The edge of youthful light fails to sneak past unnoticed and is stopped at the entrance. Mingling birdsong thirsts for the day. 

Light and sound convince me to put on my dancing shoes.

THURSDAY

Thursday is a day alone. Friday associates with Saturday and Sunday. Monday revels in its infamy. Tuesday is popular because it's not Monday. Wednesday knows it's halfway to greatness. Thursday just gets on with itself. I like Thursday. Unprepossessing, but happy in its own skin.

REFLECTIONS OF A FALLEN LEAF

This leaf, like art, is most subjective

This one makes me feel reflective

It grew green once upon the tree

It now lays in this gallery.

REFLECTIONS

My dog gives his singular I NEED A WEE bark. I open the back door. He sits and stares. I encourage him to go out. He refuses. Perhaps I'm not Dr Doolittle. He listens. He stares. I do the same. We both silently reflect upon the outside world. A brief moment. No need for language.

RECYCLING

Flags still flutter in my street but move with all the grace and energy of a lunchtime stripper. The rain makes grass blush bright green. Sunday makes Monday tidy up. A beer bottle is definitely half empty. A garden chair stays upended. A pizza box waits proudly for recycling.

DÉJÀ VU

Overnight rain mingles with a sense of déjà vu

Hope is stuffed into a

hopelessly small and tattered suitcase

Until the next time

A ticket for its destination

Homeward bound 

Lost luggage on a carousel of dreams

Lost property

Unclaimed baggage

Properly lost

Again.

ACROSTIC (IT IN THE BACK OF THE NET)

F inally

O ur

O ne

T ime

B eckons.

A rtists

L ove

L arge

S tages.

C an

O ne

M atch

I lluminate 

N ational

G lory?

H ope

O vertakes

M anic

E xcitement.

SUNDAY SERMON

The motorbike from up the road kickstarts Sunday's sermon to life. It coughs its way down our hill as my street of terraced houses congregate in two aisles of narrowing perspective. Open bedroom windows are giant church organ stops. No one sings. Morning's broken. Blame the bike.

ANTI-AGING

Remnants of rain hang from my washing line in neat little drips. The slate on my roof, buffed by overnight showers, looks new, despite being 400 million years old. I stand in the garden waiting for the restorative rain to return. How long need it rain to rid me of my wrinkles?

THE LONG-STANDING SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS OF THE POET

I'm standing so far from my mirror these days

I really think there must be much clearer ways

Of seeing who lives behind that piece of glass

It once looked like me, on reflection, that's passed.

DAILY BREAD

 Fresh baked bread reminds me smell is the strongest of senses linked to memory. Dettol or sawdust transports me to primary school's queasy, tiny, tummies. Cut grass is Sports Day. Fresh plaster is my grandfather returning home white as a ghost, covered in the dust of his labour.

XXL

For a few years, now

In time's fitting room

I seem to be trying on

Larger and larger shirts.

VICTORY PEAL

A nation sobers up, coddled in grateful silence. A robin flits, hops and flaps on my fence, as if its tiny wings were new. A gang of starlings are losing at chess to a pigeon who won't move. Glass bottles clink delicately into recycling bins, but their victory peal prevails.

RELATIVE

No rain. Yet. We wait in trepidation and expectation, as if an overbearing great-aunt has promised to visit. It will lick our faces with its hankie. It will demand attention but ask for no fuss. It will judge us and leave. We can't choose family or the weather. It's all relative.

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE WALKER

A young man runs to meet a bus. He decelerates as it passes, like a sprinter on his first false start. He walks in the direction of town. Another bus proves the maxim and arrives almost at once from around the corner. He turns but doesn't run. He's now a long-distance walker.

CONTRITION

A contrite pigeon reproaches itself, repeatedly cooing "I know, I know". Our skeletal, half-finished gazebo shows its insides, outside. A neighbour's curtain twitches. It may be dreaming. Next doors cat snuggles smugly under a half-finished gazebo. The pigeon knows. It knows.

ARCHITECT

My old school's gone, demolished and rebuilt as a much larger school. Blueprints drawn over memory. I run through solid walls where once I took PE. I raise my hand in strange surroundings. I smoke behind bike sheds that have drifted off with the smoke. 

I'm the architect of then.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY

 God is in the detail

*Terms and conditions apply

You could get back less than you put in

Wine and Wafers may contain nuts

We no longer accept Luncheon Vouchers / Diners Club or Prayer as a form of payment

You must be WAY over 18, and look it, like, legally in a court, to speak with a Priest

The value of your religion may go up and down

No cash is left in any collection plate overnight

No unauthorised worship 

Baptisms performed at users own risk

Ask about our vacancies

No Satanists

CRACKS

Boris has the Delta Blues

Sajid fills such tiny shoes

Priti - it belies her nature

Britain lacks true legislators

Dom's in perfect, wrecking splendour

Now he's coming off his bender

Gove sits silent at the back

Moving forward, spots the crack.

TAKEAWAY NEWS

A half-eaten takeaway in a box on a wall goads a portly jogger. A dog-walker is more walker-dog as his poodle doodles along. The paper van arrives (it's surprisingly sturdy.) The news is tossed onto the kerb by a surly driver. Bad news day or Monday blues? I buy one to find out.

EXHIBITION

Early, heavy rain. Everywhere's a water feature. Tarmac bubbles and glistens as if it recalls being hot. Kerbs shine as drains gargle with an unspeakable mouthwash. I'm behind glass, watching nature create an exhibition of itself, curate itself, the whole museum to myself.

DAIRY FREE

A For Sale signs lies in a garden. Are they selling their lawn? The corner shop beeps me in. No milk today, just a huge space in the cooler where milk was, and will be again. A man buys beer for breakfast. I bet he's out of milk, too. The corner shop beeps me out. I'm dairy free.

REALITY

I dreamed I was awake and I was lost in stupor's clutch

Am I now still dreaming - are they real the things I touch

Am I wandering aimlessly the valleys of my mind

Or living in the world we feel that we have not defined

The nature of reality

We pick our own normality.

SQUAWK

I wake when the gull squawks. Now we're both annoyed. Where's a buzzard when you need one? Britain's Got Talons. I'm still a silhouette in the remaining dark, though I remain positive as a living negative. I hear that distant freight train, rumbling on - sang someone, I bet.

CLINK

Morning's performing. Birdsong scats around rhythms of a distant, passing train. A red-faced man fails to silently clink wine bottles into a bin. A car's heavy metal gears grind in accompaniment with my teeth. Birdsong scats around the clinks of the man with the clink problem.

RESET

 There is a moment-all too brief

Between the time stars fade from view

And the light of the morning tide breaks through

There is a moment-all too brief

Where the world changes shift and we can hear

The click of the turn on this imperfect sphere

And we are reset.

RUBBERY

Everything was made of rubber when I was a kid. Rubber band balls, rubber footballs, rubber plants, rubber lino, rubber plimsoles, rubber wigwams, rubber guns, rubber swords. 

I realise that the 70's was my warm-up decade. I could come to no harm. If I had, I'd have bounced back!

ROYAL COMMAND PERFORMANCE

I glide down the lineup of the week

I stop to make small talk with Tuesday

"And what do you do?" I enquire

" I perform after Monday" Tuesday gulps

"Oh, that is interesting" I reply

Wednesday waits with wobbly knees

"And what do you do?" I enquire...

THE LONGEST DAY

 THE LONGEST DAY

All today's the longest day

Tomorrow will be shorter

Daylight will be carried off

By some sort of night porter.

AMBER

An impalpable mist inhabits my garden as I open my back door to nature's dot-to-dot. Minute droplets of water become trapped insects in fossilised jade, aspic splendour. The sun will eventually reclaim this gift. The inexorable cycle will restart. I wonder at time's vast reach.

SUNDAY BEST

Morning's in its Sunday best. An impatient lorry stops and hisses at a red light. A man wears a Hi-Vis vest for dangers unknown. 2 belching, smoking vans diverge at a junction like a tiny Red Arrows display. I reflect upon the corner shop window as an unaccompanied dog trots by.

SUCKS

The morning's sent on rinse and repeat. A fleet of clouds sail past in battleship grey. There's a sheen to the world. The rain's gone over it with a duster and a bottle of Pledge.  A lawn of artificial grass fails to fit in, embarrassed to miss the cut. It  sucks to be hoovered. 

FIGHT

I like The Queen 

I've never seen

Her lose her cool on show

But why she rules

With all her jewels

I will never know

Back in time

When families dined

On turnips and drank mead

Her family smashed

And really trashed

Allcomers on their steeds

So if it comes 

To family chums

To claim what's their birthright

I'll get my clan

(And my old nan)

And we can have a fight

The winner rules

And gets the jewels 

The hardest family standing

Then given time

My family's crime

Will one day seem upstanding.

PERPETUAL POTION

I've learned the secret to perpetual motion

Drank the KoolAid's conceptual notion

England's engine has Tory controls

May God have mercy on our souls.

JACK-IN-A-BOX

Rain. A dry cat sits smug at a window. Overnight, weeds pop up as if grown in a jack-in-a-box. An England and a Scotland flag do silent battle across the border of my road. A sad-looking neighbour with 2 dogs only walks 1, a surprising reminder of life's jack-in-a-box moments.

BATFACTS (UK)

Pippestrellus pippestrellus

Is the smallest so they tell us

And the Noctule is the largest of the group

They all hang upside down

When they're not flying around

And we even had good uses for their poop.

POSHNOSH

I once ate skate off an old piece of slate

Was served chips in some weird boxing shoes

Displeased with my peas in a terrible state

I struggled to eat with corkscrews

I don't find these changes the height of luxury

Next time I'll bring my own plate and cutlery

DELUGE

A thirsty drain swallows a river of rain. Flowers bow their heads in deference to a deluge. A tiny rumble of thunder in the distance. A trumblance? Clouds jostle for airtime. A man unused to origami folds a newspaper into a soggy hat. I can smell the green returning to the land.

CROW

A crow arches inky wings across languid air, writing in a lost language. Much like the filled rolls at the corner shop, this is as fresh as today will be. Inspiration turns to perspiration for a portly jogger who seems to have bitten off more than he can phew. Wish I read crow.

BLAZER AND TIE

Uneven pavements lie waiting for the trips they won't take. Bedroom windows pushed out into the street beg for air. A very old man in a blazer and tie reminds us of what we often forget. Two cats face off -  feline gunslingers. A breeze plays brief snippets of its greatest hits.

SHORT STORY

 .

PREGNANT PAUSES

Next doors pregnant cat pauses on pregnant paws. I'll be smitten with them kittens. A discarded iced lolly stick recalls a time it was once cool. A worm lies around litter (*squirms and positions apply). Two men awkwardly fist bump their welcome and miss. They pretend to box.

TAKEAWAY

 A half-eaten Chinese takeaway sits on a not very great wall. A cat's eyes interrogate me. The sun holds its breath and makes a wish upon itself for another day. An England flag, flutterless from a window, is frankly flagging as a flag. The papers are in and I turn into a rustler.

CLICKS

 This early world exists of nothing but birdsong. I stretch adding my own yawn chorus. My back that shouldn't click, clicks. A car backfires. A barking dog fires back. The world exists of birdsong, yawning, clicking, firing, and barking. The kettle that should click, clicks.

UNSUITED

 

I do not suit a wetsuit

They go up to your chin

It's a big fail, for this beached whale

That Greenpeace chuck back in.

IT WON'T. IT WILL

Nobody is at the bus stop. So it won't. The door to the corner shop is propped open, airing its corners. A man in an England shirt carries groans, cheers, and hopes upon his back. A shirtless scaffolder lifts large loads of alliteration. A man arrives at the bus stop. So it will.

DOGFIGHT

Two birds in a dogfight over my garden. My dog unimpressed. A man runs by, late for something. Time is just ahead of him, smiling devilishly. A distant car horn beeps angrily at a distant road hog. The sound of a siren makes me briefly pause and worry for someone I'll never meet.

TRAIN TIMES

 

Time is a big train

It's all steam and stack

It speeds it remains

Upon memory's track

It's fast and it's slow

It stops at nowhere

We all get a go

We all go somewhere.

NEIGHBOUR

 A couple so engrossed in each other walk into an overhanging hedge and laugh. A cat stares. A For Sale sign is leaving home, it's now a Sold sign. A single beep from a car horn indicates next door should be outside with his kit. He runs out with toast. Life's millpond ripples.

HAYFEVER

A man stumbles up a kerb and starts running, powered by embarrassment. A woman sniffs and dabs her eyes. Hayfever, Monday, or more? Two crows fight viciously over a squashed hedgehog. I ultimately lose the urge not to call them prickly. A woman sneezes. I smile. Life's millpond.

BRITAIN'S OLDEST DOOR

I must confess I did not know

of Britain's oldest door,

this small recess, this oak regressed,

now written into lore.

The men who've walked this way before, 

such tales they told or kept,

as mighty swords did rap the door

for secrets it has wept.

FAKE DUSTER

I peek from behind my curtain and catch a neighbour doing the same. We both mime dusting. A cat sashays home along a kerb, hunting relaxation. A trampoline stands forlorn in a garden, its tiny bouncers fast asleep. I catch another curtain twitch. I prepare my fake duster...

EGGY ECHOES

Eggy soldiers decorated yellow 

Many stories animated echoes

From times that grandad was himself a boy

Where his grandad would teach bookshelves of joy.

RIPPLES (2)

A man talks wildly to himself. No phone or earpiece. Sadness and I eavesdrop. Rumbles from a distant train track grow louder as I  concentrate. As do memories. A lad's sighs arrives on time with the sigh of a buses air brake. Blips and sonic ripples from today's millpond.

RIPPLES

A man walks past my window wearing a big coat. He'll carry that home. A cyclist dresses like he's in the Tour De France but wobbles like a jelly. A van drives slowly up our street, taking speed bumps like a lazy surfer waiting for the Big One. Ripples of life on today's millpond.

EPIC TALES

Life is our own epic poem

Our paradise lost odyssey

Forging a path without knowing

Who laughs at divine comedy.

Will Gilgamesh wash away sins

As Prometheus show us his trick

Ying and Yang are identical twins

We're the old tales we help the world tick.

CARVING

I carved our names upon a tree

At school that meant eternity

You saw your name and scratched it out

I added Jane's, that made you pout

You scratched out mine and added Terry's

Knowing we were adversaries

Terry thumped me, asked out Jane

Last I heard they lived in Spain

̶D̶E̶C̶A̶F̶

 

buyer beware

it's sold as seen

i do not care 

for weakened beans

I'll now unpack

my box of tea

I'll not go back

to meek coffee

my doctor said

it's time to change

in heart and head

I did feel strange

so mugs of tea

and plenty more

my decaf spree 

was such a bore

SCORCHER

 

I think the birds know

The birds think the grass knows

The sun always knows

We move in that end-of-term way

Laziness lounges around

Touting relaxation

The birds contemplate shade

The grass is released from the effort of growing

I look for the sunny part of everywhere

HUBRIS

Had my portrait painted

By a clever man indeed

We're so well acquainted 

He bowed to every need

He kept out all my blemishes

He kept out all my spots

He kept out all my crevices 

He kept out lots and lots

The finished work is on my wall

A blank canvas called My Downfall

WE ARE THE STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON

I could dream the dream of Manderley, again,

I could sail the heavens and the oceans blue

I could stop all flowing time

I could change the paradigm

Yet I dream to dream the dreams of me and you.

THE WAR OF THE ROSES

My neighbour's white and red roses fight old battles on the breeze for dominion over a picture perfect garden. I'm rarely envious of others. We are where we are because it's where we're supposed to be. Briefly, I want to be in his fragrant garden, winning his war of the roses.

EGG DAYS

I must say

I start each day

Hoping for a Fabergé

But I see

My days to me

Turn out more like Cadbury

Still a treat

Though bittersweet

But who wants fancy jewels to eat?

NIGHT AND DAY

Night briefly meets Day. Night boasts of its stars and Day agrees they're rather impressive. Night brags of the blackest black. Day nods along in silence. Day simply looks to the first thrush who is heralding the gift of new light through song.

Night departs, mumbling to itself.

STREWN

 

Between the Then and the Soon

Lays Now, quite quietly strewn

For this is the bit

Where we all sit 

From the rise of the Sun to the Moon

SHAKESPEARE AT DAWN

 

To be, or not to be: this is the morning

Whether 'tis nobler of our day to suffer

The songs of sparrows in outrageous portions,

Or to set alarms against a sea of struggles

And by snoozing end them? To try; to sleep;

One more.

THE FLUID DRUID

Language is so fluid

Like water in the streams 

What once we called The Druids

Now 'Blokes in Cloaks', it seems.

WHOLES

A colander relies on all its holes

Without them you get pans or you get bowls

But humans are not made from what's not there

They store that stuff in memory and declare,

"I think therefore I am,

Not a colander or pan"

STREET ETIQUETTE

Unspoken street etiquette. The single, tiny, glove waits on a wall for a new, frazzled, mother to gratefully reclaim it. 2 roadside, recycling bins are a passive-aggressive NO PARKING sign. 1 green beer bottle, magically half-full/half-empty, might accidentally fall/be pushed.

BURST

 we used to kick our football 'til it burst

its leather panels scuffed or worse

attempts at Kevin Keegan headers

bled us

leaving us with cuts above the eyes

wounded tales of playground pride

swelling to impress and frighten girls

walking home

picking up our throwing stones.

STUMPS

The stumps from childhood cricket games have worn away from the end of the house. The paint stripped, the crease folded. Those bricks know our secrets, casting their masonic silence over a tiny patch of overgrown grass. We're not out. Time stops play as Memory readies the covers.

SMOKERS COUGH

An old car gives a throaty, smokers cough, reminiscent of many people in the 1970's. Even my nan's dog wheezed non-filtered snores as it lay beneath clouds of Capstan. Now everyone vapes, cars are rapidly turning battery-powered and I think, do my dogs dream of electric sleep?

FIRST CUP OF COFFEE

 My doctor says it is bad for my heart 

I tell her it's good for my soul

I tried to tell her the good it imparts

She said find a new watering hole.

I though for a bit

What I said shocked her

I'm now fighting fit

I've got a new doctor!

OLDY-WEDS CONFETTI

This way passed the oldy-weds

Hand in hand as blossom sheds

Wistful faces, rueful smile

Knows the fruit borne down this aisle.

THE SILENT NIGHTCLUB

 I can see the morning's edge developing around thick bedroom curtains. A rectangular corona for a nightly eclipse, a door to a silent nightclub. The light's been in Lockdown and is held back by the flimsy material. Very soon it'll burst through and claim every seat in the house.

NEGATIVE NEIGHBOURS

I let the dog out at 4am, the strangest hour. The rooftops of our neighbours were negatives in the developing light. The grass of my lawn was leached of colour. The morning smudged the areas it couldn't quite draw. I'm the same with hands. I heard one bird message the rest.

DANDELION PUFF

I can't recall when last we blew on dandelion puff for the time, but it's a memory; or the last time we held sunny buttercups under chins, or searched for dock leaves to take away the stinging-nettles bite, or dropped rotor-blade seeds from the maple tree on high. 

But we did.

LOST YOUTH

Wouldn't say my youth has gone 

I think it's just well hid

Under rolls of belly fat

Don't do the things I did!

WONKY

We've more cracks than pavement on our hilly street. Maybe they all flow down to one huge crack like rivers to the sea. Maybe they're waiting until they all join together to form the picture they were drawing for the birds. 

Tarmac repairs sit like rotten teeth in a wonky mouth.

FEATHER TREE

 

A feather tree is funny to me

A tree that grows feathers is fun

Out in all weather

Without a strong tether

It flies off to find winter sun.

A FOLLOWING

The poet carves his path through grass 

A well worn path it seems

He walks his metered steps to last

And rhymes bits in between

He chops his way through greenery 

A road less taken, maybe

We tread his tracks, his scenery

The way he shows us daily.

WORK DAZE

I dreamt I was dreaming,it made my heart sink

And I woke just the once with a jerk

Am I still dreaming that dream, I still   think

I shouldn't be naked at work?

ROOFTOP CHESS

Pigeon takes pigeon

In a game of rooftop chess

Playing just like us

But they leave a bigger mess.

FIXED

The sun is hidden behind the bruised flesh of a marbled sky. Could've-been-a-contender, street-fighting cloud rumbles and stumbles into morning. The sun will emerge, unscathed, at some point, but it's fixed to go down in the last round. 

As it always will.

NOW THE SWAN - AN ORIGAMI LESSON

Separate the Morning from the Night

Crease the Afternoon in half, somehow

Twist and turn the Day so it looks right

All your Time is folded into Now.

SHINY SHOES

I dress in the Lockdowned Style; T-Shirt, jogging bottoms and odd socks. 

I recall my grandad would wear a shirt, tie and shiny shoes just to post a letter. I can't remember when I even last posted a letter, or if I still possess a tie that isn't black.

NESTING

I do not see the lawn grow but it does

(Often cut as it is to stay the same)

I do not see my beard grow but it does

(Often cut as it is to stay the same)

I never see the birds grow but they do

Their nesting familiarity

Returning to change quite happily

Apparently.

CLOCKS

The dandelion clocks we blew when we were young

Were carried on a carefree breeze

Their tufts of hope to lands far flung

And we followed with such eagerness and ease.

WINGING IT

Icarus - the thickest of us

Flew too close to a sun so bright

With no fuss  -  and pure genius 

I'll journey there during the night.

POINTILLISM

We all practice pointillism, whether we know it or not. Tiny dots of experience build memory. From this are built colour and shapes. It means little as a single point but stand back, take in your work. Every dot of memory is as connected as the rest. That's the point, really.

COUNTING SHEEP

 

I hope that I'm not awake

I hope that I'm still asleep

For my room it seems to shake

To the sound of jumping sheep.

WORK IN PROGRESS

The world is a rough pencil sketch just before dawn. A gallery with the lights turned off. A hint of form, a mere suggestion of colour. The world won't sit still for its portrait. This is why there are slight alterations to yesterday's masterpiece. A work in constant progress.

EDITOR'S NOTE

 

We start as first submissions with ommissions

We then transit through the pages of the ages

We store library, first edition, and revisions

We write ever-changing words upon those pages.

PUDDLED

We take mysterious puddles on trust. We enter at our peril. Mere inches deep, surprise awaits the unsuspecting foot. We used to splash about with abandon but we tend to sidestep puddles now. The price of maturity was abandoning abandon. 

We feel dry but we feel short-changed.

THE MOST

I used to drink to be sociable

The most sociable guy around

Lunchtime was non-negotiable

At the bar was where I could be found.

I used to drink to relax myself

The most chilled and relaxed around

Evening top shelf, have one for yourself

I'd toast you if you were in town.

I used to drink when I watched TV

It mattered not I was alone

Crack open cans, make future plans

For things I knew I had postponed.

I used to drink to forget myself

I forget where I ended up most

The thing with forgetting, it's too much regretting

Chapters you couldn't quite close.

This is just me and I really do see

How most can enjoy the odd drink

But if truth be told, before you're too old

Has any of this made you think?

COME THE AFTERNOON

You had dementia

You lived with us all

Every morning you asked

Where is my Nora?

Every morning we said

Nora has died

Every morning you cried

Every day we cried

Only your tears dried

Come the afternoon.

TRIPPING

 

I tripped upon the past

And fell into today

My time in here won't last

Tomorrow's trip's this way.

FORGET FULL

 (upon reading an article - Where Memories Live)

Everything I see in here

is everything I've tasted,

loved and lost and seen and feared,

touched and gained and wasted.

Everything I see in here

is all of me and more,

I should make it very clear,

I'll forget it all, I'm sure.

TALES OF TIME

 

time is key

and box

and morning

it's lock

and gift

and evening

the gift that keeps on taking

the gift that's there on waking

time sails on its own winds

time's tales from its own spin

time will call us like The Sirens

time will outlive all the diamonds.

Robin's Nest

The removal of creeping, green ivy on a garden brick wall has ceased. A discovery of a robin's nest within, containing 4 blue eggs, has turned us into broody, avian midwives. There's danger the bird will abandon it, even though we've covered it over. 

Nature's harsh. We're soppy.

GARDENING TIPS

I hope it don't rain when I'm at the tip

I've bags of cut grass and I'll slip in the skip.

JAZZ HYMNS

 Evening is jazz

Smoky rooms

clipped-trumpet

brushed-drumbeat

irreverent rythm.

Morning is a capella

Trusted tunes

hatched fledgling

rushed song sheet

itinerant old hymn.

CURRIE AND CHIPS

I was always Tony Currie

in the playground in a hurry

arms aloft stood by the goalie

(Wheezy Kid who moved too slowly)

the plastic ball was chipped sky high

caught by the wind it wobbled by

straight to our Wheezy, from orbit

(he burst our ball, he fell on it)

NEWMAN

 A day free of responsibility

maybe we'll dress up, view new-build houses

we can never afford

we'll be the Newman's

from old money

we'll talk of laying our fake grass, wonder

where we'd fit our pretend range and drink real

coffee in the pretend office

/garage

/granny flat.

FREEDOM PASSPORTS

The thing with Freedom Passports

It's just one box to tick

You're missing out on all sorts

It's just one tiny prick.

THIS IS RUBBISH

Nothing says Lockdown more than waiting an hour and a half in a queue for the tip, people watching. Some cars are moving bumper to bumper. The daring leave a big gap between cars. I'd like to see a queue jumper get in there. Alleviate the boredom. 

This is rubbish!

VEST

 We are always in the Here and Now

We are always in the There and Soon 

We are also Then and When, somehow

Always going in and out of tune.

We're Everywhere and Nowhere, baby

Lyrically, describing us the best

It's always odd but this day, maybe

All I'm sure of is I'm in my vest.

SLEEPING STUDENTS

The perfect quiet of a morning will be shattered the moment I let the dog out. I think of the students, a few doors down, partying in their garden last night. Sharing loud music and the high jinx of youth.I let the dog out to bark at the day. But mainly at the sleeping students.

SNUB

 In the sky at noon

Each other they snub

The Sun And The Moon

Good name for a pub.

LIFTED

If I was Time's lift operator

I'd battle huge dinosaurs

If I controlled Time's elevator

I'd stop it between the last floors.

FIRST CUP OF COFFEE

one little magic bean

and all its magic mates

work their magic unforeseen

that's how the magic takes

FETCH!

 

The scattered twigs

A nascent language

Tiny, little, logs

Bark-encrusted

Canine-trusted

Lingo of the dogs.

INNIT

 I'm driving along in fine rhyme

Obeying the metre limit

If I find a word out line

I stick it straight into free verse.

Innit.

BITCOIN

I don't pretend to understand Bitcoin

It doesn't pretend to understand me

We like the estrangement of this arrangement

Coinjoined in our ignorant harmony.

BANNED

The once ubiquitous rubber band

No more scattered over path and grass

Where the postie once left clues

For you and Scooby Do

Perhaps they must keep them now

By Order of Elvunsaytee

Each sorting depot feeding

Insatiable

Rubberballed monsters

Growing hungrier by the day.

TESTED

I had my prostate tested

I really didn't linger

But felt all calm and rested

Until the doctor's finger.

TALES FROM THE RIVERBANK

I'm reminded of walking along a riverbank with one of my kids when he was a toddler. Told him the mist on the river was where clouds floated down in the morning to drink. He's 22 now. No longer believes in my fantasy tales. 

Hope he briefly gets to convince someone else one day.

DIGGERS

 

We are our own

archaeology

Living museum pieces

Tagging and bagging

each strata of moment.

ANY THOUGHTS?

 Where do our thoughts start

And where do our thoughts end

The time between the chart

The time between the spend.

Where would our thoughts go

Where would our thoughts finish

If we had to show

Every precious minute.

WALLOW

 

I used to wallow in the waters of time

I used to lay there and let seconds

soak over me

Now, 

I am more circumspect with bathing

I'll dip a toe in here and there

Splash the odd month or two upon my face

But when I pull that plug

I hear a gurgled laugh

Of gargling years.

COVERED IN TIME

 

If the ticks and the tocks

Of the clock would just stop

Then I could cross Time's busy street.

But the pendulum swings

Much too fast for my limbs

I've got time on my hands and my feet.

GIFT

 

We've two brick walls in our back garden

One's collapsing

Years of errant kids chasing errant footballs

The other side is the 'scary' neighbour's

Standing firm with brick and bush

Kids too frit to ask

Magically

Some days

Four balls reappear

But only three were lost.

BEFORE THE DAWN

I wake up to a painted morning 

They've covered all nooks and all cracks

You can choose any colour - fair warning - 

Any colour as long as it's black.

NOTHING PERSONAL

Me, Myself and I

Are laying in bed

I roll over Myself

And push Me out

Myself looks at Me

While Me and Myself

Stare at each other

I push Myself out too

I am finally alone in bed

But then Alone walks in...

TODAY I'VE LEARNED...

...I'm too tall to be a spy at 6ft2. Apparently MI5 set a height limit of 5ft11. I'm more disappointed than I thought I would be, though I actually really want to be a spy.

I'll stick to writing.

Licence To Quill.

THIS LIGHT

 

This light, this delicate light

burst from a broiling Sun

five hundred seconds ago

Bouncing off bursts of radiation

avoiding cosmic obliteration.

This light, this delicate light

falls at my slippered feet

by my back door

It travels no more.

WORDWORK

 

The poet works with rhyme and words

As a carpenter would work wood

Planing meaning out of verse

As a good word-worker should.

BREATH

It's cold enough for my breath to freeze. I silently exhale, and the words I might've used vanish into the air. I  breathe in, worried I might need them later. Birdsong elicits no such lost, frozen, dictation. In sync with nature, their perfect song inhabits a wordless world.

THURSDAY

Not as cool as Friday

When the weekend starts

But knocks the socks off Monday

When the fun departs.

CRUMBLY

 

Vol-au-vents are terribly crumbly

Served at parties by all and sundry

I can eat three, no, possibly four

Though most of them land upon the hosts floor.

TRUNK

Memory. A trunk you can't fill. Nothing is thrown away. You might not be able to find the colour of the coat you wore on your 1st day at school, nor the name of the 2nd girl you kissed. But they are there. Beneath your kids names, your favourite pet, and the 1st girl you kissed.

WATCHING

 The sky at light. You can have it in any colour as long as it's blue.(whisper it) It's yet to be troubled by cloud or by noise. It almost shimmers, or maybe it shivers, as a rising sun applies rouge. A fussing parent watching over an infant child watching over an infant world.

LEFT UNSAID

The unwritten poem

The unused pen

No deep-hidden knowing

No muse

No then.

WREN

 The infant morning is playing with blocks of primary colours. Reds, yellows, and blues wait to be smeared across a tolerant sky. A wren hops into view, unsure of itself, chattering away to no-one. We've all been there. Its tiny form takes off, a blur vanishing into solid colour.

STICK INSECT

 I was sold a stick insect by a dodgy pet shop.

I was sold a stick by a dodgy pet shop.

DISPOSABLE FACES

We wear our mask

Upon our face

Not much to ask 

We know our place

We change our face

Beneath the mask

That shows good grace

If they should ask

Now off you go

Put on your mask

Your face will grow

To any task.

INVISIBLE ZEBRA

If an African zebra crossed,

One of our zebra crossings,

Would it just simply be lost,

From view from the traffic it's stopping?

SKIP

 

We rent a skip

We fill it

No more old carpet

Once proudly laid in a brand new home

No more old mower

Once hovered over a seeded lawn

No more old toys

Worn out by tiny, loving, growing hands

We rent a skip

We own a memory

We fill both with what we throw away.

ANCESTREE

If the trees were upside down

It really would be bonkers

Birds would nest right on the ground

Right next to fallen conkers.

If the trees were upside down

Would we be just the same?

Would roots and leaves the wrong way round

Makes family tree's insane?

NAUGHTY

I've woken up at 2AM

It's now just gone 2:40

I wonder if I'll sleep again

I wish my brain weren't naughty.

FORGOTTEN FACES

It'll feel strange to communicate with our whole faces when Lockdown ends. My eyes have been working overtime so long to convey meaning and nuance I'm worried I've forgotten how to smile. My bushy eyebrows deserve a mention. Wriggling away like mad. 

That'll have to stop. 🐛🐛

LOST IN LANGUAGE

The Swiss Army knife in coping

With communication.

The Swiss Navy life we open

When lost in translation.

ALL ABOARD

I lay here in my bed

In the dark and contemplation

The thoughts inside my head

Still don't know their destination

A MEASURE OF TIME

We travel in time

We all go the same way

But when we arrive 

That's not for us to say

We travel in rhyme

Our baggage is memory

The journey's sublime

Views are exemplary

We travel, we treasure

We grow, we evolve

The journey is measured

By who we involve

JUMBLE TALE

A cold April

A warm March

These Locked Down months are jumbling

Stumbling as they arrive

Bleary-eyed

Out of any order

We oughta look forward

To Christmas in July

Eating sunny mince pies

With November beached

Bonfire Night fireworks

Bleach into bright

August skies.

BOY SOLDIERS

 

we played at soldiers in the cemetery

we meant no harm

the momentum of youth

silenced acts of disrespect

machine-gun sounds and bombs

would fall between gravestones

of real war dead

they meant no harm

the momentum of youth

silenced by acts of disrespect