THE UNDERSTUDY

Friday. Ever The Weekend's understudy. Line-perfect yet certain in just one thing. That it will be seen, if at all, as a small credit at the bottom of The Weekend's programme notes. It takes its own seat with a gentle smile, as we all barge past looking only for our own.

THE QUEUE TO OUR WORLD

A fresh, cold Wednesday nips at my hands like an overenthusiastic puppy. A bus stop resembles a miniature steam train as each waiting passenger emits a tiny plume of vapourised breath which looks like vanishing thoughts. Each lost in their world, queuing patiently to join ours.

DEVELOPING MORNING

As a desert of darkness fades an oasis of houses appears at the back of my garden. I've caught the morning in the dark room with the negatives. I'm comforted to know the start of each day still requires such a drawn-out, considered process. I need time to develop in the mornings.

ITCHY FEET

I once had itchy feet, I tried to scratch them,

But they ran off when I did, I tried  to catch them,

They're living somewhere close, they wrote to say,

I'm guessing they're about two feet away. 

Thanks to Ian McMillan and Peter Hamill for inspiring this two-footed, nonsense poem.

GAMBLE

At the corner shop a man picks up a Sorry For Your Loss card and is lost in thought. A woman enters in a pink pyjama onesie. I wonder if she knows she's sleep-shopping? The pies in the heated pie machine sit next to the scratch cards. Both are a bit of a gamble, if you ask me.

BRIEF RHYTHMS

The faint hum and the distant cadence of a passing goods train. The frantic shaking of a small bush and a large bird as they rid themselves of each other. The staccato taps of a stilleto shoe. The dull whump of a car door closing. Brief rhythms of this morning's metronome.

WRIT LARGE

Thursday lightly doodles atop blotting-paper sky. Vague pathways leading nowhere. Its plans have yet to fall into place. But if we seize this moment; catch it unawares, influence its direction and include our stories, then by sunset we will be there, writ large across the sky.

TALES FROM THE BONSAI TEA

Taking tiny sips

Hoping for a bonsai tea

Up popped a haiku.

EXHALE

Monday inhales silence. It dare not breathe out. Then a jogger runs by. Through the pounding in the pavement I'm certain I briefly run alongside her. But it's all just a memory of her footsteps, an echo of her passing. Monday still holds its breath.

Soon it will have to exhale.

STANDING ON SHIFTING SAND

Let us stand on shifting sand and watch the tide return

We'll see it flow between our toes and wash away concern

We'll watch the tide go out again and whisper plans once more

And with the past dragged out to sea there's hope left on the shore.

QUEUING CLOUDS

Row upon row of clouds quietly queue overhead. There seems no beginning nor end to this queue. Just 1 amorphous congregation of cloud. As a nation who loves a queue, why can't clouds, too? They shuffle by.

I remain slightly puzzled yet I'm assured of clearer skies come Tuesday.

CROSSING SIGNS

There once was a 'School Crossing' sign:

Where whole schools would cross neatly in line.

It was meant for small children,

But this was whole buildings,

Running away at home time!

THE STUBBORN GRASS

Autumn hasn't quite yet moved in but it already has plans for the place. The mornings seem darker as the night slowly overstays its welcome.  The grass doesn't grow with such energy as before. As if it's been handed a redundancy letter and it's stubbornly working out its notice.

PASSING TIME - AN APOLOGY

Passing Time will softly brush against us. We are two busy commuters heading in opposite directions. We hardly feel Passing Time as we quickly move forward. But sometimes Time will bump into us: forcing us to stop and reflect, while we apologise for rushing off into the future.

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY

I wake to a hotchpotch, higgledy-piggledy sky. White and grey cloud jostle for attention like two mothers-in law being photographed at a wedding. I scan the sky for hints of blue. There they are, right at the back. Like two fathers-in-law being photographed at a wedding.

MOTTLED MEMORIES

I see the morning's cold and mottled cloud;

from memory it blotches and it ploughs,

from cold and mottled legs when I was young,

from chasing love on school cross-country runs.

and how I did chase after her in vain;

and how my vapoured breath did briefly pierce that stinging rain,

and how before I even knew of words like 'unrequited',

I found the flame of early love was cold and unignited.

RAIN OVER US

It looks as if the sky has been ironed. Every cloud has been neatly pressed into one, big, wrinkle-free cloud. It's flown above us all. An inscrutable sky. Neither dawn nor day but somewhere or some time in between. This is where we slip briefly through the cracks of normality.

AT THE NEXT STOP...

Battleship grey clouds scour an ocean sky looking for a fight. Friday's varnish will take time to dry. The sound of a distant, passing train quickens the heart, fuelling my desire to explore the endless possibilities of travel. Then I remember the next stop is Milton Keynes.

FAINT OUTLINES

The faint outline of houses appear in our street just before dawn. They're almost childlike in their rendering. A square, a roof, no more. But then the morning's still childlike. Its young fingers have to sketch a whole new world.

Today I hope that it sketches me slimmer.

THE COST OF VIEWING

Due to the cost of living crisis I couldn't afford the view from my window this morning. The price of views has gone through the roof, recently. I used to be able to look out all day. Now, I can rarely afford to see anything before about 9pm, and by then it's already dark!