MIST ON THE RIVER

Photo credit and thanks to Karol Wisniewski from Pexels 

PLEASE, SHOOT ME NOW, IT'S BIN DAY!

Please, shoot me now, it’s bin day! There’s another wheelie more -
The patio’s getting crowded, bins are queuing at the door.
The green bin was for garden waste, today it’s paper and card.
I’d go and check but truly, it’s a squeeze out in our yard!

The brown bin’s grass and clippings, now, the blue box is no more,
Which used to take the tins and glass that now the black bin’s for.
Stickers announce this black bin, which spent years as household waste,
Is now for plastic, glass, and foil and trays no food has graced.

So what about the fourth bin with its lid of shocking pink,
For which the townsfolk voted? Let’s have a little think.
Oh yes, this rosy rubbish bin that smacks you in the eyes
Is for all the waste remaining, though it’s scarcely half the size

Of the black bin it’s replacing, and when all is said and done,
Council tax will pay for three bins, but the brown bin’s on its own,
With its separate solo payment, and its own timetable too.
Confused? Well, you soon will be! Trash is coming after you!

If we want to save the planet, if we want to heal the Earth,
Then we need to get recycling more, for all that we’re still worth!

SHALL WE SHARE THE CAT-FLAP?

SEE YOU LATER, PROCRASTINATOR!

Grab the to-do list. Right time. Right date.

Now dawns the hour to procrastinate.

Line up the knick-knacks, fiddle and fudge,

Opportunity knocks but the brain cells won’t budge.

Clean out that cupboard. Check on the mail.

If you don’t start, how can you fail?

Biting the bullet? Not doing that!

Don’t show your hand and you’ll not look a prat.

Time for a cuppa. Who’s for a brew?

Descale the kettle. What can you do?

Check on the internet. Yes, it’s still there.

Just testing my balance by spinning the chair.

Need inspiration. Go for a walk.

Putting it off?  Who, me? You can talk!

What’s number one on this list? Let me see.

I’ll just dust my glasses and nip for a wee.

Right, full steam ahead. I’ve got to press on.

No time for that, now. Where has today gone?

FORGETTING

SINGING ONLY STILLNESS

She stands as the crack of light
Between darkness and day
Not editing herself
Letting fears sob and unknot inside her opening heart
Letting her silent survival outpace the tread of doubt

Till suddenly there is peace
Where it has waited, always, quivering,
Muffling the gibber of plans and resolutions
Crowing crowds under the gasp of fireworks
Heckling bells, the shuffling off of yester

Rooted in this rainbow now,
Meets herself face to faceless,
Where the robin's ribbons
Of shocking silver song
Echo eternity
Singing only stillness

ENLIGHT

GALAXY (or "Middle-aged contemplative Luddite gets her very first smartphone")

You snuggle in my palm
Smug in textured armour
Rippling with rhythms of cyber-synapse

I dodge your curt commands
Stacked distractions
Hide you under some foxed paperback

We sim, we circle,
Learning one another's biometrics
Agog, aghast for updates

BUTTERFLY WITH BONES - a poem for those who live with chronic illness

HEATWAVE

You are slanting like light

Across my memory

Colours undimmed

Turquoise and orange of photos

In an album shut since those Seventies summers

Detail gnawed thin by regrets we daren’t revisit.

Thermometer cannot rise to this,

Mercury shimmers, flat figures flickering.

That ladybird plague, the greenfly gorged on every stem

Pets crawling the paths, fur full of wings,

Seeking the refugee shade.

You are parching my tongue

With tears uncried

You are here, even now,

Luminous, crepuscular

You are sunfast.

MISTER STARLING

Mister Starling soon bores

Of gasps and applause

From the rapt and ecstatic

At his feats aerobatic

So he has a few sessions

Of skits and impressions

Pretending to be

With a whistle or three

Other things he has heard,

Klaxon, car horn, Blackbird,

Mobile phone on vibrate

To impress his new mate.

In motley he dresses

Punky bad-hair-day tresses,

Sturnus vulgaris ought

Be called vulgar for short,

But without each wild antic,

Balletic and frantic

Roof and garden no doubt

Would be poorer without.

WINGS FROM SILENCE

Leucistic Blackbird scuttleflusters 

Slantwise into hidey hedge

Wondering unhumble at its own

Soul-sweet difference

Sevenly splendid Ladybird

Beacons its unhidden

Abacus wings from silence

As suddenly as Spring

Both are beauty

Glory enfolds them both

DISSOLUTION (Roche Abbey, 1538) - a poem

Disbelieving

On hands and knees,

I crawl, shielding

The hum-bright hive,

Tilted honey spilling unspoiled

Bees trail a curling Kyrie

Up between linden’s fingers

Disbelieving that they would

Until they came

A storm of the king’s sending,

No pilgrimage of grace

Tripping me out of my habit

La belle Roche,

Melts into pewter, stone, timber, lead

What will become of me?

I lick my fingers

As the sword descends,

Taste only honey, blood,

Thyme from the shadows of the kitchen-garden.

Refectorium

Buzz and banter

Swims into silent

No stone unturned

Into rectangles of hollow

Mapped matins and misericord

Long since sung.

NEW YEAR SLOWS ITS STRIDE, BECKONS - AN INVITATION FOR 2018

The New Year slows its stride, beckons.
That wistful smile.
This is no blank canvas.
It comes pricked out with pictures under its skin,
Ink quivers a jet mirror, still in the nib.

Courage, winsome ones and wanderers!
Let's resolve to meet it all with mindful moments,
Future deliquescent into ripples of nowness.

Let's not miss this risk, this life, looking beyond.
Let's not cringe, not wince from the lyrical light.

Be there no regretted chance.
Midnight fires in spidered wheels of crystalline
Exploding through the spectrum,
Burn hello to tomorrow.

Dare to show up in your soul, crafting the possible
From the blissful imperfect.
Trust and go toddling!
Listen enthralled to compassion's soft whisper.
Learn your name afresh.
Let the critic fall silent.

May the crisp calendar call you
Out of fears into flying,
Out of dread into stepping
On stone, off springboard.

This be our moment for joy!
There is no other.

[You can see and hear me read this on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UasBACv8YIU&feature=youtu.be]

SITTING SPENT

Sitting spent, watching notions
Bubble between stones and stillness;
The sylvan skipper
Through the amethyst dusk,
The never-ticked rarity.

Breathing brecks, waning oceans
Troubled by chelp and chillness;
Waiting for wonder,
Under the wheel and whelm
Of all that is fairest.

Whispering weeds, sinuous motions,
Stubble rebristles a witness;
Upright in the melt of sunder,
Moonsink and dwindling footfall
On the cambered towpath.

FIRST SNOW AND THE OWL

This poem I wrote while I was at Leicester University studying for a BA in English Literature.

One of my lecturers was poet Robert Wells who was on the editorial board of the English Faculty's 'Poetry Worksheet'. The Spring 1982 edition carried this poem of mine which Robert Wells had seen and recommended for publication. 

30p, eh? Cheap at half the price!

FIRST SNOW AND THE OWL

Sun's haemorrhage

On snow's anaemia momentarily

Lights up the owl's alarm.

Pink freezes blue in the forgetfulness

Of moments while the owl

Calculates winter's coming.

Above, numb limbs of tree

Girdle him in stupor,

Sore, separate suddenly from his hooting.

Conspicuous as blood on snow

He breathes steadily beneath measured

Feathers.

He will not hoot again,

Or call to the vast, heedless settling

Delicacy. The nest is cold.

This he knows, eyeing the white shock

Of the hibernal onset, mistrustful,

Weighing a branch beneath his weight.

Below him, slow, the roots leak paths

In the void, rising, stern, determined

Like the grip of bruised fingers.

The owl flies low, buoyed up by fear

And the air's crisp parsimony,

To warn the sun.

APRIL DAWN

Feathersmiths swim through friable cloud

Dunk wings as wafers at lips of the wood

Caw still hangs in the dazzling air

Through her fan of rays Sun

 Sifts gold and blood

No-one has spoken though thousands sing

Earth submerged in her tidal Spring

WHERE I GREW UP

Bolton-on-Dearne in the old West Riding of Yorkshire's Dearne Valley, in the railway cottages in the 60s, just in case you were wondering! 😂

WINTERING ON

A little something for you, whispered in my ear by the trees as the winter creeps shivering in.

MANY UNHAPPY TAX RETURNS

MANY UNHAPPY TAX RETURNS

I'm finding little jobs to do

I'm fettling and dusting

I'm whirling like a whirly thing

OCD fluster and fussing

I can't just chill and meditate,

I simply can't relax

At least my bowels stay open

When it's time to do my tax.

Some put it off till deadline day

When January's through

But me, I start my whittling

Ages before it's due.

I could've should've done it then,

It only takes a minute.

But each year I procrastinate

Too anxious to begin it.

It's not like I have property,

A spouse or fancy car,

I've just a tiny pension

And that doesn't go so far.

I vow every time not to worry,

Mine's never that complicated.

Then here I am shivering with dread and doom,

Wondering why I waited!

But still I always put it off,

Daily it haunts my mind,

Like a gremlin, ghost or gargoyle

That I just can't leave behind.

Come on, why not just do it?

Be mistress of your fear,

For the day it's filed and over

Is the highlight of my year!

Shall I just iron those curtains, now?

Should I just polish that key?

Anything has to be preferable

To the ruddy HMRC.

Think of those multi-millionaires

Avoiding their tax for years!

Yet here am I, cowering with bitten nails,

Nightmares and jittery fears!

So I'll gather my dockets and chitties,

My P60 and statements and such.

They say that tax shouldn't be taxing,

But it taxes yours truly too much!

(Written while trying to file online and constantly getting “Sorry, there was a problem handling your request. Please try again shortly.”)