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

AMAZED

I once had a privet hedge

Private I was then

I'll buy some more, I made a pledge

Before long I had ten.

Soon I struggled to find space

Just what was I now raising?

I brought a field in which I placed

My amazing maze in.

AC/DEEP SLEEP

My alternator

currently

Alternatively

telling me

To sleep but also

make coffee

I'm still in bed though

restfully.

HIS NOSE STOPPED TRAFFIC

 

His nose stopped traffic

Everyone said 

It was quite graphic

Traffic jams bred

A short sharp burst

On trusted hankie

Drivers would curse

And get quite cranky

A town gridlocked

But a small investment

They made him opt

For decongestant.

NANTUCKET

A Limerick walking one day

In Nantucket, I'm sorry to say 

Was asked to vacate it

The town really hates it

When Limerick's go there to play.

POLLEN

next doors cat commutes between a gap

this seasoned snicket laid bare by Winter's demands

tiny buds of blossom hang from bushes of hopeful refrain

the cat's tail brushes 

briefly against them

its pollen palette confusing the bees who wait impatiently to continue

FLATBED VOWELS

I lay in bed and think of vowels

I'm far from consonontal

"Ayyy! Eeeh, Eyyye! Ohhh! Youuu! " I stretch

Though I'm still horizontal.