DANGER! UNEXPLODED CAT

The clouds are dark bruises on the sky. A cat picks carefully at a torn bin bag as if it's examining an unexploded bomb. A dog walker says hi. I say hi. It's all I've said out loud today. A paving slab crack has grown. Perhaps it's going crazy? That cat hasn't exploded yet.

DEVELOPING

Hanging in early morning's darkroom

We are negatives and positives

Old ways in a digital age

Some days we're blurry black and whites

Some days our heads are cut clean off

We all strive for the picture-perfect pose

Forgetting most life exists

Outside shutter clicks

THE TEA CADDY

I'm just back from having my late auntie's house valued. A house I hadn't visited since I was a kid. What struck me more than her fading photos; more than her garden full of colourful memories, more than the way my now giant frame seemed so out of place in her tiny bungalow, was a half empty tea caddy standing alone in her kitchen. Half full of teabags that she had bought but would never drink. I suppose they will be cleared away by a man and a van at some point. The detritus of her life marking the very moment of her passing. I'm not sure why it had such an affect on me. Perhaps it was the sight of such an everyday object measuring the passing of my auntie in such an ordinary way. It wasn't enough. 

Later, in a box in her bedroom, I found a collection of fridge magnets  she had collected from her many travels around the globe. I took one, from Borneo, and placed it in my pocket. When I got home I put it on my fridge. It's a reminder that we are more than the moment of our passing. We are where we've been, who we've seen, and what we've done.

I settled down for a cuppa, and the teabags in my caddy marked my own moment in time.

POLYSTYRENE SNOW

It's Recycling Day in the street.

It's Recycling Day in the street.

Next door's back on the Shredded Wheat. Other next door's back on the red wine. That polystyrene won't be collected. It'll slowly turn to snow.

The students have forgotten again.

The students have forgotten again.

THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE

A black and white morning leaches into colour. The cloudy skies of the East peel away to reveal a dirty orange, a rumour of a colour, in segments so far from the horizon that they're not yet to be believed. The blue/green grass has the illusion of choice from Morning's Palette.

CAUGHT UP IN THE MOMENT

At the corner shop the talk is of the Winter Olympics. We reach a consensus that figure skating is boring, ice hockey's too fast, and curling's too slow. I actually like the curling but I was caught up in the moment.

One man mentions he's been skiing at the Milton Keynes Snozone.

BOOKWORMS

The Library of Life has many shelves

And no fines for late returns,

Take your time choosing your very best self

It pays to be a bookworm.

GRAVITY'S END

The gargling street drains of Sunday morning's ablutions. On our street on a hill, rainwater overflows from each grille it meets, a giant water-Slinky searching for gravity's end. Our tarmacked street gurgles and churns its disapproval. Nature flows under and over its concerns.

DOPPELSCAMMER

One day I was out walking

down my street,

and who do you think there

that I did meet?

only my imaginary friend,

he told me stuff

quite hard to comprehend,

he said I was the one

who was invented,

it left me feeling

quite disoriented,

if I'm not real

then can these words persist?

if you can read them

do we still exist?

IN A GALAXY FAR FAR FROM HOME

Faint stars in a cloudless sky from distant suns that burn at night. Their light outshines their existence. Ghost stars hang in the night, memories of light.

We're made of stars. Starlight we'll become again. Who will stand and watch our light when it lands far far from home?