AUDIENCE OF ONE

The melodious, machine-gun trill of the blue tit sprays song over my back garden. The bass, languid accompaniment of the wood pigeon holds it all together. This freeform style occasionally rises over the relentless hum of distant traffic. Then, Nature is performing just for me.

PUFFING LATE

I wake late. Like tinsel still stuck to the ceiling, I'm out of place in familiar surroundings. Nevertheless, I ride the footplate of Monday morning. Holding tight, needing speed, catching up, overtaking thoughts. Cold air meets my deeds.

They puff rich clouds of vapour breath.

MEMORIES OF PIPE SMOKE

At the corner shop a 'Wet Floor' sign is a short story from its recent past. A man buys pipe tobacco. I drift off into clouds of pipe-smoke memory, and my late grandfather's collection of pipes he let me clean. I resist the urge to sniff the old man as he passes. But only just...

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I lift my cup of tea and steam

and disappear into a dream

and in that dream I shed my cares

I'm free from stress and world affairs

but if I start to worry more

of life and all its rocky shores

I find I take another sup

And sail away into my cup.

A SIREN WAILS...

A sweaty jogger runs. A siren wails in the distance, luring itself onto the rocks of unhappiness. An electric car glides by me in early light and is a ghost of a petrol car. A lorry in a layby, frilly curtains drawn across its windows, the homeliness of the long-distance runner.

THE ITCHY BEARD OF WINTER

The rugged, itchy beard of a winter's lawn begs to be shaved. A gambling rain can't decide whether to stick or mist. The wet earth sweats with the great expectations of Spring. A grey sky, like an old white t-shirt, tries its best to be brilliant again, yet grey it will stay.

IMAGINE THAT!

One day while I was walking down my street,

Who there do you think that I did meet?

My old, but my imaginary, friend!

He said something I could not comprehend.

He said I was the one who was invented,

It left me feeling quite disoriented.

If I'm not real, then how can I persist?

If you read this can we, indeed, exist?

1/2

MIRRORS

On a street on a hill

the brick-terraced homes

face brick-terraced homes

across tarmacked fields.

On a street on a hill

the back-to-back gardens

face back-to-back gardens

across the boxed green.

We're mirrors to each other. Far closer

than we'll ever discover.

THE TIDES OF COMMUTE

The high tide of morning commute washes cars and vans from my street on a hill; away to exotic shores. Corby, Kettering, Milton Keynes. The flotsam and jetsam of delivery vans and learner drivers will lap at our feet during the day, before the evening tide pulls the fleet home.

BIRDLAND

Tuesday opens the darkroom door. A myopic moon, a sliver of light. Window frames develop through the first smudge of morning. Redundant TV aerials wait for the day when archaeologists decipher their metal workings & declare they've found a long-lost civilisation ruled by birds.