Wednesday 29 September 2010

ORDER.

I got a divorce,
And of course
I’m sure she got one too,
But as she didn’t show at court
To talk over our son’s custody
I can’t really be sure that she’s aware of it,
Living in the shell that’s snared her:

Pasted in her place
And wasting away in apathy;
Fractured in the foundations
Of her being;
Cored by the facts
Of a fallen apple
And unable to snap out of its fictions.

Leaving her front door locked,
The phone alone,
Her post closed
And circling between remorse
And blame whilst unable to jump the train
Of thought that originally
Brought her here.

Yes it’s funny how you marry together,
But separate apart,
Even on good terms,
Which we are when she’s sober or bold enough
To acknowledge her faults.
So yesterday I got my absolute decree
But did she?

Monday 27 September 2010

DRESSING UP.

The cosmetic mask
She wore was drawn on for the occasion
Of their love making;
Caked to imitate a tramp’s face
And taste better than a duchess’s looks,
And dressed with tresses
Stretched back and bangled.

He wore a thick fake tan
And on his manicured hands were rings
Especially placed for their weight;
Complementing the cut
Of his pimp’s clothes
Until he was imposing enough
To wetten the deadliest drought.

They tangled for a time
On the mantled bed before he reddened
Her cheeks a little more
With a sweet left hook
And she beat the fuck out of his structured
And well proportioned torso,
And then they fought some more.

War paint ran down
Her stained glass face till you couldn’t tell
Her bruises from the soup of her make up,
And as the breaking of bended rules
Continued they took their tussles to the hot pool
Where, choked up on coke, they remained
Until their water cooled.

Saturday 25 September 2010

SANDGLASS.

When you’re in the centre
The beginning of the adventure
Seems as distant as the end;

The winning of the maiden
A secret that has faded
And is occasionally debated,

And though the meeting remains
Revered its ingredients are strained
Through the sieves of our days,

But when we veer towards
The precariously marked doors
We mix them together for all

Our various skills are worth
Into a plausible dough that earths
Us to the planet’s curves,

And forces more discussion
About the painful repercussions
That would result from pushing

Our aims too far apart,
And how the end would start
To resemble a tumultuous car,

Crowded with incompetent cooks,
Who should have looked
More closely at their clocks.

Wednesday 22 September 2010

FIRST DAY BACK AT WORK.

And when you’re not here I hurry through the histrionics
Of the day as honestly as possible:
Making safe the pavements that my son’s begun to travel;
Carving half a chicken after blistering its skin;
Soothing mother’s mood with music lifted from the Fifties
And generating sighs of great relief once all’s complete.

But still the empty minutes stack once those I’ve packed
With diligence have had their fill
And filed themselves for me to rate much later.
And still the empty hours tower over my time’s hoover,
Proving that no matter how hard I fasten myself to duty
I’ll be left fruitless at the end of its conclusion without you.

And all the fizz of wished achievements; all the glitz
Of entertainment’s idiots; all the bought goods, the thoughtless
Bid wins and greedy media acquired cannot aspire
To the undeniable sum of your company,
Or the wonder that you breathe into the free time
Before I succumb to sleep’s compulsive numbness.

So when you eventually bless me this evening,
Shorn as it will be of yesterday’s measure of meaningful
Seconds, I will beckon you closer to my mouth
And whisper shout just how much you structure me,
And how time spent without you near, even when still so far,
Is more rewarding than any spent alone.

Sunday 19 September 2010

IMPROVISING.

There’s a mist taking liberties with my time,
Drizzling its crime,
Fizzing with the chimes of rain on drainpipes
And wiping my nose in the fact
That I should have acted yesterday,
And popped down the shops
When they were open longer
Instead of nestling
In my bed
Until tomorrow.

Still I’ve had me a little sortie
For essentials
To the corner store,
And have managed to hoard enough milk
And cookies
For a fucking month;
As well as a couple of cream cakes
In case the stakes remain the same
For the rest of the week
And there’s no break in the weather.

And the autumn equinox is due,
By which time there’ll be no turning back,
And the year will inexorably
Slide into its final performance,
When the frenzy
Of last minute buying
Will make my Saturday lie in
Look all the more attractive
And it won’t matter
If it rains or not.

THE ARCHER'S MAN.

I’ve an image of an apple
On the head of vast man, who stands

Undaunted by the quick
Distance of his past adventures.

In a clearing ahead of him
There is a shimmer of a thinner kind,

And an arrow in the bow
Of a small apostle who has to loose it

And hit his mark without
The use of sight or sound or texture,

And though wretched
In the face of this thankless task

The disciple takes his time,
Assesses the line of his trajectory,

And fires his dart of hope
Into the gap that stretches onwards,

Convinced that the faith
Of his conviction will guide his shaft

Of light into the heart
Of his intended target, thus imparting

The fire of insight towards
The night sky and splitting in half

The fruit of ruination that
Was placed upon the minds of men.

Thursday 16 September 2010

HIS CONJURING TRICKS.

The motion of an opening book
Takes magic
And makes it look possible
As he flicks
From picture to peeking picture,
Shaking off the dust
Of all those who have seen
These images
Before from the pages he rakes over,
Trying to scrape
Away any stray words that have
Had the nerve
To wander on his perfect figures,
And bringing
Them to life in his springing mind.

But I must
Remember not to purchase
Another one
Of those beautiful pop up
Volumes as he
Really hasn’t grasped the point
Of their use,
Grabbing instead the paper shapes
That literally
Leap from their storage spaces,
Replacing
The animations he’s fashioned
For them,
And then dashing them to pieces for
Spoiling his spells.

THE FLAVOURS OF TODAY.

The last day of the County Championship
Brings no luck
And a German Pope,
Who won’t be knocking on my door
If Yorkshire loose,
Which it appears they will do,

Though he probably wouldn’t have been paying
Me a visit if a victory
Had been possible,
Along with other draws or losses,
Unless I missed his wishes in the post,
Or an invitation got tossed,

But that’s alright as I wouldn’t have the time
To receive his Holiness anyway,
What with my day
Being consumed by the snook,
And a huge Shepherd’s pie
To be built and cooked,

Though maybe, if he really wants to,
He can pop along for tea,
As it must be one of his favourite meals
Named after the parable
Of our Saviour as it is
And capped with leeks and cheese,

Although it’s main ingredient is sheep,
And as any Lamb knows
It doesn’t pay to lay down with Lions
Especially if you’re lying
Underneath a snow capped top
Of butter crusted mash.

BEYOND THE RIDGE.

Follow me and I will elevate the very earth that greets us,
Carving stairs of softest cloth into its varied face,
Laying over them a colour scheme to match your palette’s
Finger printed breeding, and once your first foot fall
Connects you’ll crave the next step upwards to investigate
What waits above.

Atop the rise I’ll reproduce your favourite trail and skyline,
Gladed at first sight by saplings sprung from summer’s finest roots,
Then further buttoned in a thicker woodland’s suit;
Warping overhead to wrap the hatless in the vines and finery
Of this environment’s commitment to a future decorated
By its dominant attendance.

And from it we’ll emerge, hands linked in finger chains,
Into a vale whose tears have collected in a river bed
And swept all sorrow’s sediments from off your face;
Replacing what was lost within your lifetime with a wash
That waits to cleanse you deeper than the features that
Have come to crease you.

Here we will swim a while and feast a time on fortune’s food;
Exchanging any hunger felt for younger selves with nourishment
Unknown when strength was ignorant of knowledge
And a reasoning unfeasible before, and on the tiny shoreline
Of this watercourse the sun will set a better dressing
Than it ever had adorned.

For you this world I’ll furnish with a never ending fomentation,
Lengthened by the look of pure surprise that greets you
Upon entering and in the morning venturing out further into
All that lies beyond the spring and flows unto the one true
Promised land that only honesty and all its kin could
Ever have envisioned.

Wednesday 15 September 2010

TUESDAY BLUES.

We probably
Both caught a cold
Coming back from the doctors,
Where we’d set off to
Earlier on account of
The prospect of
A chesty cough,
Which was now,
No doubt,
About to come to fruition.

But he was given the all clear
And we steered home,
But the rain ruination of another
Day laid waste
To any further plans,
And the demands of his tiny life,
The twin peaks of walking and talking,
Were beginning to thin his energy
To the extent that intention
Got the better part of valour.

After getting back
We mapped out what
Was possible with a house full of toys,
A flagging interest
And the placid rest periods
That were God sends,
But, as mentioned,
He wasn’t up to much
So we decided to hutch down
And wait for another day.

HER WORK.

A crimson sky
Is splashed with white,
And summer long colours
Fill circles
As her page turns to certainty
In the autumn light.

Sage is placed on lower greens
Upon an unseen bower
As sheens of high veridity
Billow beneath
And garden growth is trothed to potted plants
Commanding your attention
As they stand
Upon each other.

Uncovered in the square
Of careful canvas
Is the perfect execution
Of her latest work of future frame;
Aimed at no one in particular,
And everyone in general,
And yet to be rooted
By the shoots of life
That connect my husband
To her wife
And strive to tell the tale.

Her grail is mine for seeking
And for keeping safe
Until the grave bequeaths
Its finished beauty
To another generation.

Tuesday 14 September 2010

UPWARDS AND ONWARDS.

When you fall
From all fours
You don’t have far to fold,
And like a child
Finding height
It hurts more from your toes.

But to crawl
Anymore
Will keep you feeling low
And the profiles
Of the light
Will be hidden in shadows.

And if all
Is ignored,
Because of stature’s glow,
Then you’ll be filed
In the aisles
Of the fools who never know.

So walk tall
And accord
Your feet an ordered road,
And if denied
Then arise
And give it another go.

Monday 13 September 2010

NEW.

It’s new,
With you,
Every time we do
The things
We do:

When our text
Stretches
Its legs
Along
The page,

When words
Surge
Purposely
Across
The Earth,

When spit
Trickles
From my lips
To
Your mouth’s tip,

When come
Thunders
And runs
Beneath
The sun,

When our love
Floods
And covers
Each
Other.

MIXING IT UP.

She was seconded to a second life
Whilst I backed my regimental first one,
And was certain that my choice would
Be vindicated by an ability to deal with it,
But she was febrile
With her friends and leant the weight
Of her personality to managing it.

The people she met and vetted
Were blessed by her nervous excitement
And delighted in her scatter shot comments;
Offering their own cajolery
And empowering her sufficiently
To rise above the misery of a life that had surprised
Her with its emptiness.

And although I had dabbled in mystical travel
Over the airwaves,
And become addicted to it,
I managed to winkle my fingers from the keyboard
For a pen’s length,
But unfortunately its ink was unable to grip
Sufficiently to a page and I returned.

And amidst the swirling surge of
Surface haze we grazed each other’s bubbles
And burst into the broth beneath;
Exchanging stock and locking in
The flavour of our ways until the soup we brewed
Was tastier than the single ingredients
That we once knew.

Sunday 12 September 2010

THE MIDDLE.

Some people make no sense
Whilst others make little else,
And I find myself
Trying to decide
Why neither of them are particularly appealing:

The artless farting in the bath
Can’t understand elan,
Whilst the sanctimonious
Posing in the shower
Are only too aware of how powerful they look;

The amorphous mass cast
Off society’s shapes,
Just as the structured
Rupture another vein
Trying to fit civilization into their version of it;

The hollow fall
Into the shell of themselves
A moment before the solid
Fill in the blanks for them
With their never ending explanation of things,

And it’s not my job to rob
The ignorant of their calling,
Or forestall the tide
Of righteousness
That will inevitably hit from the literate,

And I’m certainly not
About to pick a side,
Or bide them lightly,
So I wish they’d hurry up
And conclude their business and be on their way.

TAKING A BREATHER.

I want my tongue in your mouth
So I won’t be able to put a foot in mine,
Because however fine
We are
I can still jump the car,
And send things south.

The weight of pressing matters
Can be lightened by the industry of a kiss,
And the marked ellipsis
That it
Makes replaces the blitz
Of my chatter.

And in the moments revealed
We supercede the need of incidental words,
As anything that’s heard
Improves
The recent attitude
Of their appeals.

And you approve of the sounds
My newly muted mouth is now making with yours,
And can breathe in a pause
In which
To order and then stitch
Your own voice round.

Saturday 11 September 2010

WALKING ALL OVER ME.

From the shop I got an octopus
To keep my boy at bay
For I simply don’t have arms enough
To entertain his day,

You see he’s wandering around as if
He has the right to walk,
And testing my authority
With homemade tomahawks.

And his mind is quickly firing,
His legs propelling more,
And feeding him is tiring
Because he can’t be caught:

He’s in the corners, in the cracks;
He’s climbing up the walls,
And every time I turn my back
He’s breaking protocols.

And when I get my hands on him
He flashes me those eyes
That always are employed to win
A moment of reprise,

And I’m reduced to ripping out
The rest of my gray hair
And racked by waves of gripping doubt
That leave me in despair.

But after sleeping peacefully
With words of love announced,
I wake and take it easily,
Until he starts to pounce.

YOU.

Without you there
I would not have been able to contemplate
You here.

Without you here
I would be incapable of waking up to face
Another day.

Without another day
The ungrateful dismissal would abruptly
End my life.

Without my life
I would miss the changing face of my son’s
Beautiful future.

Without the future
There will be nothing to bother the atoms
Of tomorrow.

Without tomorrow’s
Inevitable recollection no one will sketch
Our yesterdays.

Without yesterday
I would be without the immeasurable blessing
Of you.

Without you
I would now wish for existence to have passed
Me by.

Friday 10 September 2010

YOUR IMPACT.

Touch’s suction
May be too much,
But Christ I’d like it wringing
Out my life
Within your vice.

Sectioned on the edges
Of the world
As we have been recently
I miss your grip
Upon my sanity;

I long for your absorption
Of my thoughts;
Your drawing of my form;
Your soaking cloak
To reek of me.

I feel like leprosy
Has captured me in
Its withering attrition,
And I will never know again
The facts of contact.

I need the missing fence,
This lesser sense,
To cradle my unstable mind
Inside its hiding place
And make me safe.

So fetch me love,
And stretch upon
My soundless skin your blessing;
Compressing me
Until I’m squeezed enough.

BETWEEN US.

When we melt
Again
Into each other’s ghost

We gain a closer
Understanding
Of corporeal needs:

Sheeted on separate beds
At each end
Of the Atlantic

And thanking the lucky stars
That link us
In transmission.

My land line
Connected to your grapevine
And exchanging

The bravery
Of our relationship
Across such distance.

And once run,
And spun, and run back home,
The phone holds

Our conversation
In the ephemeral vault
Of its memory.

ROUGH PUPS.

The semi formed lad
I passed this morning
Leant over his shoulder
And yelled to a shape in the distance
That he’d burnt his head out.

Now I wasn’t too sure what he was yawping about
But I guessed he’d been wheezing away
On illegal seeds,
And by the look of his ubiquitous
Crumpled track suit
It was probably true.

And I don’t want to disapprove
Of another’s lifestyle,
Or how he whiles away his workless days,
But surely there must be something
Better for today’s youth to do.

There has to be a path
For them to follow that doesn’t involve wallowing
In narcotic dead ends,
With necrotic comrades,
Who as such are more akin
To swindlers than friends.

And I don’t want to sound
As though I’m out touch,
Being partial to a pinch of snuff now and again,
But these young men have no centres
When they venture from themselves.

Thursday 9 September 2010

OUR CALVARY.

There is a space
With our name along its deck
Where we can lay
Upon a bed of our choosing,
And stay until the few who matter
Ask for our attention.

I will place you face down,
With your arms outstretched,
And crucify myself
Across your back;
Tacking myself inch by inch
To your skin.

And there we’ll remain;
Still in keeping with
The honoured time we’ve caught
Or bought with our labour,
Until our heart beats
Seek the rhythm of each other;

And covered by my contrition
You’ll wish for me to move
Into you and delay
My sin a little longer;
Stronger now we’re bonded
On a hill of our own.

BLOODWORK.

Blood goes forth
And finds its way around the body’s route map;
Capturing the beauty
Of system views
And bringing news back
From the very edges of its universe.

Return journeys
Are immediately planned and executed
And salves are sent
To restore damaged
Or deteriorating slip ways;
Rendering the tender spots where possible.

And in the North,
Where thoughts wander in and out of random
Alleyways and lanes,
Support is offered
Where requirement is found;
Drawn from the deepest wells of common sense,

And, once deposited,
The crimson stream continues with its work;
More joyful that
At least the reed beds,
Where mistrust matures,
Have been flushed of their uncertainties,

And blood goes forth,
Oblivious to its own mortality unless a rip
Spills it over sills
Or dread stretches
Further south and drowns
It in a fear that even tides cannot repair.

Wednesday 8 September 2010

TRANSMITTING OUR WISHES.

The usual forms of communication
Seem to be making
Us irritable;
We’re either defensively sensitive
Or aggressively callous,
And we can’t seem to get the balance
Right
In words or type,
And it’s beginning to hinder
Our speech.

So maybe we need another form
Of discourse in order
To survive:
I could burn London Town down,
Whilst you work on New York,
And the boasting smoke will do our talking
For us;
Filling the already
Flush skies with our rebukes
And apologies.

Or I could use the moon’s blooming,
As you fumble with
The sun,
And with sufficiently large carpets
We’ll flash out in hardiest
Morse code the thoughts we once wrote
Down,
Or spoke to each other,
Via the sky’s incandescent
Messengers.

Or still in old codes we could transmit
In sound waves a similar
Pitch;
Me with the suspension ropes of
The Humber Bridge
As an instrument to strum away with,
And
You with the Golden Gate’s
Harp strings to bring them to my
Attention.

Alternatively we could send letters
To each other through
The postal system;
I’ll start with ‘A’ and see how that goes
And if I receive a ‘B’
Then I’ll know we’re onto something,
But
If you skip straight to ‘Z’ then
I guess we’ll spend eternity discussing
How to pronounce it.

And if all those fail then I suppose
We’ll try your most recent
Suggestion,
Which you brought up this evening
As the strain
Was starting to drain us of alternatives:
With the
Straightest possible face
You mooted the use of sign language
Over the phone.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN.

There was an idea,
Discussed in the midst of midnight ticking,
That inspired a mind
To proclaim it the finest theme since design
Conceived of such concepts,

But unfortunately
The analogist who sifted the grist of the thought
Did not think long enough
About keeping its seeds safe for the morning’s
Rendition,

As no pen was to hand,
And the notation application of his cell phone
Was too cumbersome
To wield with one thumb at that time of night
Whilst on the land line,

And subsequently,
When dawn came calling, the previous evening’s
Visionary insight was lost
Amongst half remembered drops of dreams
And screened details,

And even props of
Soda pop, chocolate and cigarettes couldn’t
Get to the mettle of it,
And one more gem of wisdom was tossed into
The locker box of time.

And so was mourned the
Passing of what would undoubtedly have comprised
The finest writing this side
Of the last highlight that he should have fucking
Written down at night.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

WHATEVER IT MAY TAKE.

Take heart from the fools
You once knew
Who made it to the
Top table when all
Around them thought
Inability would stable
Their ambition in the barn
But who had the substance
To rub up to the right
People at the right time
And turn circumstance
To their advantage.

Granted they made
The best of another’s hand
But you have real talent
And no need to gamble
With it in games of
Chance or balance
Precariously on the
Swaying words of
Charlatans or family
Members who you
Wouldn’t willingly
Lend a shilling to.

You must believe in
Yourself and if necessary
Measure that against
The achievements of
Those thieves who have
Stolen a march on
Time’s tutelage and
Waged war on decent
Peoples’ good faith,
Even if that means a
Slight compromise in
The light of requirements.

AN EVENING AMBLE.

I went for a walk
Round the block
And took the baby,
Whose recently counted
Twelve spring teeth glinted;
An amount officially confirmed
By yesterday’s dental appointment.

Strolled down the
Cobbled back lanes
Where leaves had started
To gather in the cracks and
Tufts of grass splashed the creases,
And river bank trees were seasonally
Thinner as they prepared to greet winter.

The river towards Hook
Was mud flat low and,
Although I never believed
The talk of walking across it,
I guess anything is possible when
The neap tides begin to bite as tightly
As they do when the moon is cycling by.

The red brick glittering
In the distant green told
Me the official path would
Soon run out and so I dismounted
And headed down the slopes again;
The baby getting restless as I called my
Lover and approached the old roads home.

Monday 6 September 2010

THE VOLUMES INSIDE.

There’s books in us
That are waiting to be baited
From the pages
They exist upon
In the lowest depositories of our souls;

Where they sit on walnut shelves,
In velvet jackets,
Stacked to the rafters
And laughing at us
As we scramble around to reach them.

But we’ll delve
A little deeper one of these days,
And breach the caves
Where they’ve kept themselves
Sheltered from our territorial centres,

And when we do
We’ll strip the literature
From in-between their bindings
And ring the finest
Meaning from them for our own devices:

Stories of pornography,
In calligraphy,
Or mysteries ripped from time
And slipped into
A crime rate’s infrastructure;

Rhythms and rhymes
Shivered and shined
To catch mercurial modern eyes,
And shake the dust
From the crust of poetry’s current roost;

Or picture books
Struck from ice sheets
Which look quite innocent
Until heated
And melted across a manuscript;

Missives mined from memories
And rendered
At a pen’s length
Then sent upon their way
To plant greener seeds elsewhere;

Romantic novels
Exhumed from the tombs and hovels
They felt safe within
In this age of date raping
And gossip columed glossy magazines;

Children’s tales and fables,
Tabled in leather bound cases,
To be found
And placed within
The finest palaces of the rich and famous,

And biographies
Of apologies
For all the wrong doings
We’ve done
Whilst trying to run our marathons alone.

Oh there are books in us baby,
Which I will write
And you’ll provide images for
To dazzle the dimmest sights
And finish what was started in our minds.

TOGETHER.

Every night we try to meet in moods,
And most times we do,
But occasionally
We fail to be
In the same place,
And obviously distance plays a part,
Or finances raise their dirty face,
Or families grate,
But mostly it’s our self defence mechanisms
Kicking it and wrecking things,
And our humours bruise us,
And then we have to delicately deal
With feelings,
And fragility’s kiss,
And a wish for future’s fortune
To fall soon.
And sometimes little things may wink
And tinker with our thoughts,
And ride roughshod over us,
Or dizziness rushes
And we must spin in the opposite direction
To straighten up,
Or strengthened tensions
And torsions
Try to force us further apart
And by the time you want me to stay
I don’t know where I am,
Or I demand a perfect trance from you
And stamp my feet when greeted
With the opposite,
And then we have to remember,
Our friendship,
And surrender our selves
To each other.

Sunday 5 September 2010

A WORKING PERSPECTIVE.

When nothing remains to be said
I’ll be sad,
And likely as not
Dried up
Without a weapon
To bend
To my will’s use,
As I find that other tools
Elude me,
And leave my outstretched
Hands clammy.

And not for want of trying
Have they denied me,
And not for chance’s parity
Have I tried,
For a fare share of circumstance
Has danced with me
But I seem to have been born
With two left feet,
And a capacity to partner those
People with two right ones,
Or who were invariably wrong.

So when silence
Fences me within its stockade
I pray
For the return of words
To urn me
A further stay within the world
That sometimes turns
Clockwise and sometimes spins
Otherwise
Depending upon whether
You look up or down.

Saturday 4 September 2010

A GRAND DAY OUT.

Went to York today
To see the trains;
The diesel and steam
In the Railway Museum,
And the first one we saw,
As we walked through the door,
Was a type Thirty One
Like my Father rode on
When he drove them in Goole
At the end of my school.

Then we headed outside
And made for the pride
And joy of Yorkshire’s crown
In the centre of town,
But the Minster was billing
And I wasn’t willing
To pay up and enter
It’s magnificent centre,
So we went for some fudge,
And bought way too much.

But we did take some snaps
Of the Minster’s stained glass,
And the streets that surround it
And people dumbfounded
By this beautiful city
And it’s glorious history,
With it’s columns and walls
And birthplace of Guy Fawkes,
Then we made our way home
From the world’s second Rome.

Friday 3 September 2010

MY HEROINE.

She walks
In smocks
And wears a stethoscope
To hear lies with.

She talks
In shocks
And dares the misanthrope
To cheer crisis.

She lays
In love
And tempts the competent
To perch beside her.

She stays
Above
And lends the impotent
A church to guide them.

She climbs
The sides
Of cliffs still unsurpassed
And adds a transit.

She mimes
The ride
And lifts the ancient masks
That had me stranded.

Wednesday 1 September 2010

SPRING COLLECTION.

Apparently next spring’s been cancelled,
Due to cut backs,
So this year’s leaves will have to last;
Its plants must be set fast
And colour cast
In order not to loose their hues
Through winter’s cruel rule.

And the perfumes of the garden
Must be net protected from the bees,
Who themselves will need
Collecting and keeping
In the spare room if we’re to save them
From freezing,
Or at least sneezing off their pollen.

And other insects too
Must be hoovered up and stored indoors,
Along with seeds and spores
And all the other yearlings
Shed by nature’s
Beds and hedges
That have set themselves already.

And steadily we’ll capture a picture
Of summer in case this is the last allowed
Due to the penury caused by this young
Century’s gross indulgence,
And then when winter ends
We’ll spread our botanies across
The world’s virgin canvas on its behalf.

LOST IN THE LANES.

Some things pull you
From your own mundane tasks
And ask
“Hey,
What the hell are you doing with your life?”

Shuffling in the cracks
Between one relationship and another?
Or wallowing in the swallowed pill comfort
Of one more attempt at it?
Maybe neither trial sticks to your vigilance;
Maybe you’re one of those individuals
Who don’t need people in order to sleep well,
Or fiddle with yourself continually
Or simply can’t get on with folk and so poke fun
At them for eating out when their kitchen cupboards are full.

Whichever flavour graces you
It might just be time to
Lift the heavy lids from your eyes
And see why
Life’s shouting at you.

Maybe your memories
Are etched in sand at the tide’s edge,
With a full moon due and no cement left,
And you’ve forgotten how rocky
The road from the shore can be if you leave too late;
Could be debate has favoured more
Worthy causes than the shape of your sunglasses,
Or the state of your finances or the fate
Of one single soul who doesn’t have a hole
Or a shell to treasure and perpetually dwell in.

THE LITTLE DISTANCES.

In a supermarket car park
I bumped into a friend I’d not seen for years,
And we chatted about those years,
Long gone,
And the people who wore them,
And then we went our ways
And the day continued.

But for those twenty minutes I was elsewhere,
Sharing time with him,
And laughing at the luck
That had befallen others,
And ourselves;
Comparing hair and work
And circumstance.

And where we stood had once been
The grassed and muddy fields
Of the school where we first met;
Now bettered by development,
Apparently,
But still able to project
Our recollections.

And it felt like we were kids again,
As we stood discussing our own,
And made me realise how far
We had travelled
Even as we
Unravelled a story started
On that very spot.