Fire door

DangerThunder and lightning CautionA box that opens(but should not) CautionRed seeds you could eat(but should not) CautionA bargain to make(but should not) That doorKeep shut Only those who dareDo not. — Earlier this week I took a photo of a door that entertained me: I liked how the list of commands added up to make

As if nurtured

“From the fallen log,
A sapling grew.”

Residue / Our Pride

I was toldthere were regrets,sadness over the thingsgone sour. Still to this dayit’s never been confirmedto my faceby you, the one concerned. I am determinedto maintainit will always bea little too late. As it is, your stupid goodbye gift –I’ve thrown it well away. — It might be pre-birthday angst, hormones or summer-fuelled heat, but

Visitation

All in whitedescended on my doorstep,in a cloud of cologne:the amoretto, the deuce,the quicksilver sonof Mercury. Some spellsare an intercession. — Other poems about visits, hellos and good-byes: Different rides My heart was a rogue balloon Pavement Writer On a traffic island halfway across High Road, evening The mattress turned over In this place, I

Palette of an overcast spring day

Seen from the poet’s loft:Red London bus, double-decker,then a postal van.Grassy yards where in the bedsTulips, bluebells, wilder forget-me-notsNow show. A man in puffy jacket,fluorescent against ground greyfar away.A neighbour shakes a sheetup to the washing-line. Pigeons, magpies, parakeets,finches, robins, full-bodied crowsfrequent the rooftiles,Conifer,Wooden fence below. Some say on such a dayThe only colour to

On the secret beach

When we’re not thereOr if we arethe wavesdraw up resolve To putter out on shore. Great energy, momentumDissolves in frothy white.The rest draws backto charge on blue To roll a course infinite. — After two years of serious COVID-anxiety, I flew to Mauritius. In the two weeks there I planned to write, read and exercise.

Out of Office

Follow BQ on instagram (@beadedquillwrites) and Facebook. Sign up for occasional emails from the poet’s desk on the website homepage. Find BQ’s books for sale via Blurb, including Jangle between Jangle, a collection of verse written while jangling to-and-fro during the London commute.

New Years, New Times

Necessary Work Types of Necessary Work: Getting up. Going to work. Eating breakfast; taking meds. Watching for my eye to mend. Watching as the candle burns. Letting go to say goodbye. Waiting. Letting a breeze into the room. More Types of Necessary Work: Devising shapes with pens and Filling lines. New fonts embossed on diary

And

a poem to be paired with With And, another word – verboten in excess, the Creative Writing Rules would warn. And then another thing And, and, And, and. Dandy and, Like but, not to be ushered in at sentence starts. And so for years, and carefully was placed or erased. But now the rules are

Having accomplished

There is that lull Where you can’t unhook from sinkhole hours lost to nothing with nothing to show for it. Having completed no task, cursory to dos eating, basics, coffees, two evening closes in and mad-desperate panic of IS THIS ALL YOU LEAVE? will be your watching gong of dervish disappointment. 17/05/2020 —With a book