ACROSTIC (IT IN THE BACK OF THE NET)

F inally

O ur

O ne

T ime

B eckons.

A rtists

L ove

L arge

S tages.

C an

O ne

M atch

I lluminate 

N ational

G lory?

H ope

O vertakes

M anic

E xcitement.

SUNDAY SERMON

The motorbike from up the road kickstarts Sunday's sermon to life. It coughs its way down our hill as my street of terraced houses congregate in two aisles of narrowing perspective. Open bedroom windows are giant church organ stops. No one sings. Morning's broken. Blame the bike.

ANTI-AGING

Remnants of rain hang from my washing line in neat little drips. The slate on my roof, buffed by overnight showers, looks new, despite being 400 million years old. I stand in the garden waiting for the restorative rain to return. How long need it rain to rid me of my wrinkles?

THE LONG-STANDING SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS OF THE POET

I'm standing so far from my mirror these days

I really think there must be much clearer ways

Of seeing who lives behind that piece of glass

It once looked like me, on reflection, that's passed.

DAILY BREAD

 Fresh baked bread reminds me smell is the strongest of senses linked to memory. Dettol or sawdust transports me to primary school's queasy, tiny, tummies. Cut grass is Sports Day. Fresh plaster is my grandfather returning home white as a ghost, covered in the dust of his labour.

XXL

For a few years, now

In time's fitting room

I seem to be trying on

Larger and larger shirts.

VICTORY PEAL

A nation sobers up, coddled in grateful silence. A robin flits, hops and flaps on my fence, as if its tiny wings were new. A gang of starlings are losing at chess to a pigeon who won't move. Glass bottles clink delicately into recycling bins, but their victory peal prevails.

RELATIVE

No rain. Yet. We wait in trepidation and expectation, as if an overbearing great-aunt has promised to visit. It will lick our faces with its hankie. It will demand attention but ask for no fuss. It will judge us and leave. We can't choose family or the weather. It's all relative.

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE WALKER

A young man runs to meet a bus. He decelerates as it passes, like a sprinter on his first false start. He walks in the direction of town. Another bus proves the maxim and arrives almost at once from around the corner. He turns but doesn't run. He's now a long-distance walker.

CONTRITION

A contrite pigeon reproaches itself, repeatedly cooing "I know, I know". Our skeletal, half-finished gazebo shows its insides, outside. A neighbour's curtain twitches. It may be dreaming. Next doors cat snuggles smugly under a half-finished gazebo. The pigeon knows. It knows.