HINTERLANDS OF THOUGHT

Rumours of rain turn to gossip in a tittle-tattle sky. The first drops on my face are nothing more than secret whispers. So light are these hinterlands of precipitation that I'm unsure whether I'm experiencing or remembering rain, perfectly balanced between nature and thought.

A RANDOM TANDEM

Confined to bed

I stroll with my thoughts

Who was the first postie

I saw in shorts? 

Who first started sentences

With the word 'So...'? 

Will my grandkids kids

Ever see snow?

Will my confine be brief?

Will my thoughts stay this random?

I've ridden a bicycle

Never a tandem.

THE NOURISHMENT OF YOUTH

Early Drive. 7am. A sky of semolina as we spin around to sunrise. Silhouettes and shadow people. Ghosts in the machine. The great warehouses on the edge of Northampton stand like giant, alien boxes in need of nourishment. I drop my lad off at one. He's a light snack, at best!

THE DILEMMA OF TIME

I once wrote a limerick on time

Where I showed our dilemma entwined 

Our present's so brief

And our past is a thief

But our future's not cast or defined.

THE MEMORY OF THD IDLING CAR

In our street, a crushed can of baked beans are now baked been. A jogger runs downhill, fast, as if he's been pushed & can't quite control his descent. A car's been warming up for so long outside that I begin to think the owner may have forgotten they started it & gone by bus!

THE SEPIA STAGE

Dawn's reached that sepia stage. Where everything, everywhere could be a faded Victorian photograph. Birdsong is timeless, however, and the simple tweets and whistles I hear before the colouring of the morning remind me that for some, each new day is a wonder and a joy to behold.

DEFIANCE

My tired, straggly back garden lawn could be a philosophy lecturer's beard. Those sinful Winter weeds on the garden path; penitent, patient, waiting for Spring's approval. My felled holly tree mocks my efforts. Tiny, prickly shoots stem from a stump,shivering in fragile defiance.

AVOID THE POTHOLE

Early drive. 7am. AVOID THE POTHOLE.A brand new game from Tarmac©.Complete your journey without hitting any road craters. Points are awarded for swerving skills, sudden braking and near misses. Can you avoid the potholes? 

Available at all bad roads.

Fun for the hole family. 🕳️

THE ABSENT-MINDED MAN ON VALENTINE'S DAY

These roses were red 

Don't be a spoilsport 

I know they weren't dead

At the petrol forecourt.

SMUDGE LIFE

Early drive-7am. Fog has descended upon our town. What is already quite dark is now quite dark and out of focus. Fog has that ability to cast us at its centre, where we struggle to make out each other. It delivers a blurry metaphor for our smudged lives, if only we could see it.

EARLY DRIVE - 7am

As a memory of nan's favourite perfume slowly inhabits a room, so the morning light reaches out to my senses. Shades and fades. Then lots of blocks of greys. Then misty sifting, shifting ochre. The morning inhabits a room. Overpowering,yet overwhelming familiar.

SMOKE SIGNALS

Friday arrives fully frozen. A pale, yellow, redundant sun, with about as much warmth as a 10 watt lightbulb, hangs in a cloudless sky; as if everyone, everywhere, all at once, has had the same not very bright idea. A smoker send signals at a bus stop from both Benson and Hedges.