AUSTERITY SEASON

I'm starting to forget what clouds look like. Brittle soil cracked by a toffee hammer sun. Brillo-pad grass stained nicotine-yellow. The coolness of the morning, a promise from a convincing charlatan. Perhaps the cost of living crisis means we can only now afford one season? Hot!

VIBRATIONS

Wednesday's playing spot the difference with Tuesday. I see the early sky's been lightly doodled upon by a bored morning. Overnight, the Earth's tilted one more click towards autumn. The trees begin to notice these minute vibrations of change from deep beneath an unyielding soil. 

SHADOWS

What if we're the shadows in a world of solid black?

What if we're reflections of the shapes behind our back?

What if we just shine in moments all too brief to see?

What if our world passes as another's fantasy? 

What if our world simply just does not exist at all?

Mere shadows upon shadows up on someone else's wall.

REFLECTIONS

 Caught in the early sun, the tips of trees

wear copper crowns. Chimney-pot shadows seem to rest briefly on rooftops. Inextricably they move like the dials on a clock by Dali; stretching, warping, like a negative of a Slinky. Anti-reflections of where starlight fails to fall.

HIGH T(eas)

Opera's quite boring

and face it, quite long,

but our tea-drinking nation

we know a good song.

We maybe can't stretch

to operas high C's,

but the British sing best

in the key of high teas.

LEAF PAINTING

Sunday holds its breath, waiting to exhale. Soon it'll breathe its warm, August air over a parched town. The world looks so much brighter in a Technicolour, golden summer, yet I've no idea how the trees stay so green. Some say they paint their leaves in the dead of night...

ICE CREAM! LOLLIPOPS!

Friday arrives. Weekend clothes stuffed into an overnight bag. Our summer holiday street is devoid of kids so early on. As if the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has visited. Even now I shudder at the memory of his feline grace and fear a horses hoof on cobbled stone.

SMUGNESS AND THE PERFECT LAWN

Binmen arrive in our silent street with a clink, clank, bash and whirr as the street's rubbish is crushed by onomatopoeia. It sounds like a suburban End Of Days. I guess I'd miss my house but I feel a tiny bit smug that next doors lawn would finally get to be as eaten up as mine.

THE PETULANCE OF THE SIMPLE CUPPA

A sticky, overcast start to the day with clouds resembling badly-made porridge. My kitchen fills with the deep, rumbling bass notes of my kettle. Shaking itself to the boil it sits steaming in the corner like a scolded child on a naughty step. The petulance of the simple cuppa.

REAL OR REFLECTION?

A recycling box with No.42 on its side is sitting outside No.50. Perhaps it's recycled its owners. We have more litter in our street than the posh houses one street up. Trickle-down home economics? 2 black cats stare uneasily at each other as if unsure whether real or reflection.