BAGATELLE

Patches of purple cloud. Bruises on a prizefighter's face. A swollen aftermath to last night's storm and its giant bagatelle of raindrops. A faint film remains. Puddles in a silent dawn, born of energy, peacefully reflect the stillness of a morning, subduing the passage of time.

RAILWAY CHILDREN

Here comes a jogger

he's right upon time,

there goes a jogger

he's more hills to climb,

here comes a woman

she's smoking a fag,

there goes a woman

she's having a drag,

freight trains of people

pass by us each day,

all long-lost junctions

we miss on our way. 

COLD CURIOSITY

The cold curiosity of a church at prayer. Flagstones polished by sinful shoes. A bully pulpit calls out. Repent! More trestle tables! A fete worse than death. Notices, passings, blessings. Organised religion. Ah, men.

PILLAGE AND PLUNDER

Over this ridge is Danes Camp, once home to conquering Vikings. Clamber over the exposed roots, you'll find the ridge encircling a silent,

green meadow, a history oasis, lying between two modern estates.

We come here now to pillage time and plunder memory for our own dark ages.

JEAN

Overheard at the corner shop.

"Jean's in hospital."

"Terry's Jean with her hip?"

"No, Mick's Jean with her leg."

Get well soon, Jean, whoever and wherever you are.

APOLOGIES TO FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Where my wife shouted in dejection, 

"Please, just one walk without reflection!"

JOSS STICKS, SANDALWOOD AND DOT COTTON

The languid burn of a joss stick behind the counter of the corner shop. I'm captivated by a long piece of ash drooping from the stick, refusing to fall. How long can it defy gravity, spreading sandalwood throughout the store? 

Oddly, I almost tiptoe away, thinking of Dot Cotton.

SIZE MATTERS

Tiny rain dots fill the air, as if they've learned how to fall but not yet how to land. The jogger who was once so big runs up the street again. The more is see of him the less I see of him. A cat pat downs a bin bag for breakfast. Rain clouds hover, not quite sure of themselves.

TENDRILS

Lazy cloud-doodles scribble across the sky, too wispy to form into anything but idle thought. Sunday's are at their best when they're free-flowing and without regiment. Tendrils of ideas, tickling for suggestions, reaching out for fruition, yet waiting for nothing in particular.

CHESS

A man on an electric scooter conquers gravity and noise as he silently glides up a hill. These rental scooters are all over town. People are gliding to and fro like waxworks on dolly carts. It's quite disconcerting. As if our town is playing a huge game of chess with its people.

PERCOLATOR

I'm greeted first thing by the earthy, damp, musty smell of a passing, heavy rain shower. Bark and soil and leaf and grass are filtered through this percolator of the morning. A heady brew. Redolent of a drip-drying day which just can't quite shake the moisture from its bones.

FLASHES OF TIME

A padded, grey sky rolls on by, leaving trees and bushes to sweat out the exertions of an overnight thunderstorm. The mildness of the morning is in stark contrast to the tempest tantrum which tossed and turned my sleep awake. I saw flashes of time, briefly illuminating my dreams.

WHITE LINES

 The sky is scratched by thin, white lines from passing planes. I watch the lines fade. I didn't see the planes. Were they ever really here? Where did they go? They exist to me as a brief memory, reborn. We validate our own lines by what leave behind,  howsoever brief.

GIANT WORRY BUBBLES

The unerring confidence of a sapphire blue sky. Days for which rose-tinted sunglasses were made. A dress rehearsal for summer. Why does a blue sky lighten everyone's mood? Perhaps the clouds carry around the troubles of our world? Those giant worry bubbles are banished for today. 

RUMOURS

Rumours of rain in a semolina sky. Whispers of water. Naive, green trees and purple-blushing bushes stretch to listen. The random fenestration of homes of a certain age. Botox for bricks, touch-ups for tiles. The sky will never look exactly like this again. So the rumour goes.

TOYBOX

such times we once had and such times we once shared

through the summers of our reveries;

in the dust of the attic there sits undeclared

our toybox of lost memories.

SELF-ASSEMBLY DAYS

The comforting whirr of a bedroom fan, the sonorous snores of a dog. My wife slowly shifts in her sleep and casts another line into the water of dreams. Morning peers around the edges of our curtains but respects our privacy.

Weekends are the best when they're self-assembly days.

COMING SOON...

Clouds daub their creamy, palette smudges onto a pearlescent sky. We place each canvas on permanent display in the gallery of memory. We each curate our own collection. We leave space for that unfinished masterpiece, "The Hope Of Tomorrow."

Coming soon to all good galleries.

HERALD THE NEW DAY

The sun holds court and has banished cloud and reigns across a kingdom of blue. Street lamps line the street and bow in deference to the source of all light. A blackbird plays jester and sprinkles sweet song where it can. Crows herald this new day from their stately chimney tops.

DANGER! UNEXPLODED RUBBISH

Wednesday is recycling day. Wednesday is recycling day. Bin bags litter the pavement with no sense of irony. A green bottle stands on a wall waiting for the end of the song. A barefoot man in boxers tiptoes from his house carrying a bag of rubbish as if it's an unexploded bomb.

PLANKTON LIFE

 Oh, how I wish my home was near

Such sea and sand and shingle,

I'd lose myself, let me be clear,

Within it I would mingle.

But I am stuck in Northampton

I'm really in a muddle,

I'm living with the land plankton

From several dirty puddles.

SNAILWATCH

A snail clings to a tree. It doesn't move, but then snails do live their lives by the hour and not by the second. I can't help but think that the tree is looking down and saying, "Whoah! Slow down there, fella." 

Take a moment out of your day and watch the snails rush by.

STRENGTH AND FRAGILITY

A crystalline spider's web shivers and shimmers with early morning dew. These drops of dawn are almost too much for the web to bear, but miraculously they cling to the silver-spun thread, testament both to the strength of a spider's labour and the very fragility of its existence.

SUNDAY BEST

A routine Sunday morning appointment at the hospital. Magical parking spaces, greeted as long lost friends. Fewer staff, calming corridors. A hospital at rest, drawing breath.

Then the wail of a siren kicks through complacency. A reminder that life & death wears no Sunday best.

HOKUSAI

Rain-glazed grass speaks of a shower just passed. A brick wall reddens in embarrassment and frustration that its own Hokusai wave has to be held in. It can never break. Soon the sun will demand back each drop like some crotchety old rich lady withdrawing pennies from a bank.

THE BEEKEPERS OF SUMMER

I've watched the blossom puff and preen

itself into such flowering dreams

that ride on bushes and on trees

enticing summer from the bees.

BANK HOLIDAY PROCRASTINATION

The unfettered hours of a Bank Holiday. I could learn a new language but which one? I could paint or draw, though I've never been able to before. I could travel the roads less taken, but the queues today would be horrendous.

Bank Holidays really are a procrastinator's nightmare.

BORING MATING RITUALS & HOLIDAY HOMES

A pigeon sits on a tree then flies to sit in a bush. Then it flies back to the tree again. It repeats this a few times. Is this some sort of boring mating ritual where the pigeon's given up on love? Or is it a homing pigeon with a nearby holiday home who's forgotten where it is?

I DREAM OF GLIDERS

The fan in our bedroom sounds like a faraway, small-engined, propeller plane flying overhead. My wife says it helps her sleep but I often dream I'm in a small propeller plane. Last night my wife switched the fan off before sleep.

Last night I dreamt I was in a glider.