KEEP TO THE BEAT

I get lost up in the melody of a blackbird's song. The notes tiptoe across my garden, finding fragile  beauty with each delicate step. The bass line of a wood pigeon reminds me that while some are born to sing the praises of the morning, some are happy to merely keep to its beat.

SIRENS OF HOPE

Outside the corner shop there's a familiar hum. Scratchcards, eagerly scored in huddles of hope, are tossed to the floor in frustration. Most cards don't make it to the nearby bin. Littering is a final act of defiance as the silent sirens of hope dash dreams upon pavements.

ODE TO JOY + DIVISION

We've left the EU

(now that's a long story)

And now it's just us

And a truckload of Tories.

We've tasted our freedom

It's made us quite sick

And they won't have us back

So we're stuck with this prick.

LIVING IN THE 1950's

A van toots twice so merrily outside my front door I nearly jump in myself. My neighbour leaves, kisses his wife on the doorstep goodbye,  and chucks his toolbag in the back of the van. The van smokes and stutters as it leaves both the street and the 1950's far behind.

TEA AND JOHN CRAVEN

Watching John Craven in 70's sweaters,

Talking 'bout power cuts and 3-day-week setters,

Mum saying wait and see what's on Blue Peter,

But you turn to Magpie, their theme tune's much neater.

CENTRED

The early fog makes the morning forgetful. They leave each other to memory. Our garden fence is on the lean. A robin sits on it, looking both guilty and proud.

No matter where you stand within the fog you'll feel you're at its centre. The universe plays the same unnerving trick.

SKIMMING

A beautiful start to the day. The sky is using all the blues. A robin flits across this backdrop; a stone skimming off a pond, rippling with frantic beauty, its little wings beat so fast as its tiny body rises and falls in the sky. It settles in a bush. We both catch our breath.

AMATEURS

An electric scooter stands abandoned at the top of our hill. Rented where they're found and left where you like throughout our town. It stands as a final paragraph to one small journey and the prologue to another. Jump on, jump off.

The houses look on and think "Pfft! amateurs."

IRON MAN

The cars in the avenue are surrounded by fallen blossom. As they leave, there remains rectangular spaces where blossom has yet to fall. Between the remaining cars it seems as if Ted Hughes' Iron Man has dug himself free and has left its giant footprints upon fallen nature.

MORSE CODE MORNINGS

The grumbling mumbling mood of morning traffic mingles with a distant passing train rumbling though my town. Perched between the noise, tweaking brief silence, rises a blackbird's song. Melodic Morse Code. Proof that our dashes are mere dots in comparison to Nature.

THE ECHO OF A BLACKBIRD

A blackbird sings on my garden wall before flying off over the houses and way out of sight. I can still hear the song. I don't know if I'm hearing the echo of a memory of all the blackbirds I have previously heard sing, or if another blackbird has joined me to add to this echo.

GREY OR BLUE?

The blue sky seems a little grey this morning, or does the grey sky seem a little blue? Early footprints of clouds; mere markers, outliers, scouts in the sky for the larger clouds to follow.

We may all walk in search of a sky more blue than grey, but we cannot outpace the clouds.

HARE TODAY...

The cotton-tail end of Easter unravels itself into long strips of wispy cloud. All the chocolate bunnies have been tasted, most half-nibbled into submission, where they lie in tinfoiled shrouds, a scene from a confectioners nightmare. Nearly a hare today, nearly gone tomorrow. 

INSCRUTABLE

Petals of fearful, fragile blossom shiver in an early breeze. Colourful announcers of life cling so tightly to spindly branches. Do they know they're part of a plan or are they frightened to fall? 

An inscrutable Easter Sunday Sun rises over a fearful, fragile, blue dot.

MANGLED

The clouds seem flat. An overnight pass through the celestial mangle has left them folded and freshly laundered. Chimney pots and treetops stretch to feel the softness.

Lifetimes ago. Nan's mangle. A real treat. "Slowly! Slowly!"

I sniff the clouds, but they roll by so fast.

LOST GLASSES

My glasses

Lost, again,

Sit smugly

On my head.

JENGA AND TETRIS

In our street on a hill, cars are parked bumper to bumper all the way down. I'm tempted to play a giant game of Car Jenga, removing one at a time to see if the whole edifice falls. It won't, of course. This is obviously a giant game of Car Tetris. I must add cars from the top!!

GRAB-A-GRANNY

I wake to clouds whipped into ripples of mousse. The blush on brickwork of the south-facing, posh houses as the sun asks for the first of many dances. Our roads not south-facing and rarely gets the chance to dance. Wallflowers. We're content to play Grab-A-Granny with the sunset.

NEON

Plump, crowded, evergreen, pine trees, finally concede to a singular beauty of blossom on a stick-thin tree. A dog-walker argues on a hands-free phone. His dog looks chastised and confused. The corner shop neon sign flickers like neon signs flicker in horror films right before...

WHAT A TO-DO!

I've a to-do-list to remind me to do stuff

But I forget to fill it out

I've a to-do-list to remind me to do my to-do-list

But I forget to fill that out, too,

I've a to-do-list for my to-do-list to remind me to do my to-do list

But by then someone else has done it!

BLOOM

Frost holds court and holds on tight. A mediaeval king with absolute dominion. A blackbird jester sings, happy he's not been baked into a pie. The spindly fingers of trees reach to the heavens and spin silk from the crowns of wisps of cloud. Nature's 1 word proclamation - BLOOM. 

ONCE A SMOKER...

Outside the corner shop a man finishes a cigarette with such satisfaction it's almost obscene. Is it his last fag? Is he starting a healthy smoke-free existence? The joys of people watching. Reading minds.

He finishes, flicks it to the floor, and lights another one...

AN URBAN FOX HAIKU

Urban vulpine skips,

Lone fox hunts 'cross alleyways,

Tally-ho! Reynard.

TIME TO CLEAN

As I watch the second hand of the clock,

As it sweeps the seconds into minutes,

I can't help wondering what's left behind,

Is the past all the stuff from the present

that we simply forgot to clean?

BRILLIANT FRAGILITY

Sunday's brilliant fragility. As if i'm in a fine jeweller's I dare not touch a thing lest it shatter and be gone forever. The woken sun knows best; it's weak smile slowly appraising, lifting, this frangible art with its delicate rays and placing it down in velvet-lined boxes. 

BRUISING

The dark sky smacks of a bluish tinge at 6am. Not the enveloping black shroud worn by a cloud-covered night. Not the golden robes of an unfurling dawn. It's a bruise which slowly forms across the sky, as Night and Day struggle to keep their quarrels from our childlike eyes.

MYSTERIOUS, PUNCTUATION...

Commas are great,

but then something eclipses these,

Ending a sentence

with hosts of ellipses, see... ... ...

FEALTY

Icing-sugar snow dusting rooftops and the very tips of green. I breathe in Arctic air and breathe out body warmth. It's hardly a fair exchange. Nature sits gloriously cold and dispassionate and demands fealty. Meagre smoke signals rise above me in clouds of breathless payment.