THE MEMORY OF WARMER SUNS

March freezes itself, hoping to preserve its last day. The trees are quite indecent in their nascent blossom. They shiver with shock. The grass is brittle and stark in this hybrid dark. The sun gives only the appearance of warmth, drawn as it is from the memory of warmer suns.

OWNERS

My dog barks once to go into the garden. He doesn't care it's Mother's Day. He doesn't know we've leaped an hour into the future. He looks at the garden, sniffs the fresh air, does what he needs to, returns to his bed. He'll bark once for breakfast soon. I do wonder who owns who?

TO OUR DEAR OLD MUM

I'd like to wish my mum a very Happy Mother's Day

And that goes for all the mums that ever were,

But if we delve back far enough into the deep dark past

We'll find we share the same mum - so this one big card's for her.

THE BIRTH OF THE MEMORY OF SUNNIER TIMES

an unrelenting, selfish, morning sun

refusing to share sky with anyone

and folding into all our memories

soft milestone markers, Nature's remedies;

do you remember, because I do,

when the days turned gold and the skies stayed blue? 

NEW CELEBRITY SQUARES

The rich blue of an everlasting sky is wrapped in a corset of mist. Have we caught the new day unawares? Lights blink on and off in the windows of the posher houses which back onto my garden. Reminds me of Celebrity Squares, but played by Field Sales Reps with mid-level Mondeos.

THE FATTENING SEASONS

My lawn's got bed hair. It looks more in need of a brush than a cut. A blackbird perches on a fence panel which leans inches away from the others, making my OCD twitch. Lawn furniture and the skeleton of a gazebo still hibernate, waiting to be fattened upon seasons in the sun.

EXPECTATIONS

The early morning is plump with the expectation of a glorious day. You could prod it with a fork it's so full of expectation. Suffice to say, it's fit to burst with expectation. I enter the corner shop full of the joys of Spring. No papers. No milk. I wasn't expecting that!

MEANS-TESTED LIGHT

Blushing brickwork to the backs of the posh, Avenue houses in the next street. Being merely a scruffy Road, we get the sun's hand-me-downs later in the morning. Quite disconcerting that. Light travels 93 million miles from a flaming star only to be means-tested before I see it.

BROWSING

Sharp-suited Sunday wears its eponymous best and greets me by asking how it can help. I tell it I'm simply window-shopping the everlasting possibilities of this most carefree of days. And, as Sunday always will, it leaves me alone to carry on browsing at my leisure.

@IMcMillan

SPLIT PERSONALITY

I once was a magician's assistant

I worked hard and upon his insistence

He sawed me in two

Then vanished from view

Left me half the man I was by some distance.

THIS SEASON

Birdsong babbles over the brook of an early morning. The clouds, otherwise engaged, leave the most vivid blues by way of an apology. Naked trees are envious of the evergreens who, if truth be told, feel a little overdressed for early Spring. Blossom is this seasons must-have.

THE WAY OF THE LIGHT

When I rose the moon was dressed as a Lord, draped in ermine-collared mist. Then it was a Saint, crowned with a halo of cloud. Now it's a pauper, hidden away.

If we could ignore what gets in the way of the light we have a chance to better understand the moon, possibly ourselves.

PICK ANY COLOUR

I wake to a sky of all the blues; the deepest blue grasps for the receding stars, the lightest blue, fusses, brushes, rushes to paint horizons of morning glaze. Sharp silhouettes of birds speckle this colour chart of tint and shade.

Pick any colour, as long as it's blue.

CUP OF LIFE

A play that tells us all we need to know about tea, life, and the connections we make; set over three sups. 

SCENE 1 

(three empty tea cups meet just after breakfast)

CUP ONE: 'sup?

CUP TWO: 'sup?

CUP THREE: 'sup?

(fade to black)

(curtain)

CORNER-SHOP CONVERSATIONS

Overheard at the corner shop...

Customer - Your plastic bags are rubbish, they always tear before I get home.

Shopkeeper - You know what you need to do?

Customer - No, what?

Shopkeeper - Live closer to the shop.

I do love him. And he gave the fella a free bag.

DUE FORTH

The points on Sleep's compass are cause for concern

They're moving from what I am hearing,

Soon I'll be forced from my bed to return 

To a daytime of orienteering.

OUT OF BREATH

In our town we lost our Marks and Sparks,

Said the building's needed for car parks,

To no avail we raged and even ranted,

Our town is now severely underpanted.

MAGIC

Monday, The Magician's Assistant, covered from head to toe in mist. With a wave of its wand, The Marvelous  Sun will burn it away before our very eyes. A chorus of birds chirp that they've seen this trick before. Others sit patiently on TV aerials, waiting for the big reveal.

THE RECALIBRATING WORLD

The glowing sky; a rumour of morning, and one which will make it blush. Then those stubby-fingered trees which inhabit the dark will be shown to have elegantly long hands, waiting for the first rings of Spring.

The world recalibrates its wonders and I find dog poo on my porch.

THE PROMISE OF HAZE

The garden glistens after a quick shower. Jewels have been sewn into every blade of grass. It's sweating diamonds before dawn. The rising sun is shooing away the clouds as if it's tired of them getting under its feet. The mist is granted a stay, in exchange for a promise of haze.

MAINTENANCE

The corner shop's chiller is off. I ask why.

"MAINTENANCE" sighs the shopkeeper pointing to a sign saying "MAINTENANCE".

"Oh, maintenance" I nod like I understand, "Er, how long will it be?"

"Until the sign comes down."

I fear it's not the 1st time he's been asked. Nor the last.

TUMBLEWEED

A rising sun raises dark bruises on the mottled flesh of the sky. A dog's bark visits from barks unknown. An old newspaper flutters. Only the news has fluttered by. An empty packet of crisps trembles on the breeze. A distant train rumbles on. All part of this town's tumbleweed.

SONS OF ANARCHY

Emperors, Kings and Presidents,

Send your sons to war.

Let them pay for your negligence,

When you scream for more.

Senators, Dukes and Ministers,

Send your sons to war.

Let them be co-conspirators,

And we shall keep the score.

DREAMER

The sky canvas is white with constant cloud,

a dreamscape for the imaginative; 

a cloud to everyone else.

A dragon on a moped, a tall ship

on fire, a fly eating an apple.

I dream of a life in the clouds,

but I know I'd just look down,

trying to find shapes on the ground.

AUDIENCE OF ONE

The melodious, machine-gun trill of the blue tit sprays song over my back garden. The bass, languid accompaniment of the wood pigeon holds it all together. This freeform style occasionally rises over the relentless hum of distant traffic. Then, Nature is performing just for me.

PUFFING LATE

I wake late. Like tinsel still stuck to the ceiling, I'm out of place in familiar surroundings. Nevertheless, I ride the footplate of Monday morning. Holding tight, needing speed, catching up, overtaking thoughts. Cold air meets my deeds.

They puff rich clouds of vapour breath.

MEMORIES OF PIPE SMOKE

At the corner shop a 'Wet Floor' sign is a short story from its recent past. A man buys pipe tobacco. I drift off into clouds of pipe-smoke memory, and my late grandfather's collection of pipes he let me clean. I resist the urge to sniff the old man as he passes. But only just...

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I lift my cup of tea and steam

and disappear into a dream

and in that dream I shed my cares

I'm free from stress and world affairs

but if I start to worry more

of life and all its rocky shores

I find I take another sup

And sail away into my cup.

A SIREN WAILS...

A sweaty jogger runs. A siren wails in the distance, luring itself onto the rocks of unhappiness. An electric car glides by me in early light and is a ghost of a petrol car. A lorry in a layby, frilly curtains drawn across its windows, the homeliness of the long-distance runner.

THE ITCHY BEARD OF WINTER

The rugged, itchy beard of a winter's lawn begs to be shaved. A gambling rain can't decide whether to stick or mist. The wet earth sweats with the great expectations of Spring. A grey sky, like an old white t-shirt, tries its best to be brilliant again, yet grey it will stay.

IMAGINE THAT!

One day while I was walking down my street,

Who there do you think that I did meet?

My old, but my imaginary, friend!

He said something I could not comprehend.

He said I was the one who was invented,

It left me feeling quite disoriented.

If I'm not real, then how can I persist?

If you read this can we, indeed, exist?

1/2

MIRRORS

On a street on a hill

the brick-terraced homes

face brick-terraced homes

across tarmacked fields.

On a street on a hill

the back-to-back gardens

face back-to-back gardens

across the boxed green.

We're mirrors to each other. Far closer

than we'll ever discover.

THE TIDES OF COMMUTE

The high tide of morning commute washes cars and vans from my street on a hill; away to exotic shores. Corby, Kettering, Milton Keynes. The flotsam and jetsam of delivery vans and learner drivers will lap at our feet during the day, before the evening tide pulls the fleet home.

BIRDLAND

Tuesday opens the darkroom door. A myopic moon, a sliver of light. Window frames develop through the first smudge of morning. Redundant TV aerials wait for the day when archaeologists decipher their metal workings & declare they've found a long-lost civilisation ruled by birds.