The good news is

The wet streets open for furtive foxes alleys for cats swaying branches for turtledoves coo-cooing in the rain. Fewer people will be out. 03/05/2020 — An apt poem from the back catalogue to follow a wet, May weekend. It felt like it rained for two days solid, but that is not true. I went out

The colours of the street have changed

Tight red-green leaves sprout on the curbside trees. Drizzle taps the flattened Strongbow cans stomped down with an empty pizza box American hot pepperoni and chilli. Baronsmere’s pink petals line the gutters; blown down in April rains. I even spied a spider. 12 and 13/4/2015 — In rhythm and feel, this poem bears a resemblance

The bees credit it as some point of luxury to be on the Tube

I have written a number of poems inspired by London commuting, including this surreal scene posted last year. Here are some others: On the Way to Westminster (a personal favourite) Trapped Items Tunnel Days Tube Sketch

An overdose of summer

Soft to the thumb, the pear I sliced was gone. It was rotten inside. In a wither of ruffles the rose-heads have browned dry in the heat. They sodden after it’s stormed. Even the blowflies ferocious have stopped their wings, landed their green torpedoes for the last time. Something from lunch churns in my stomach

Two Poems about Grey

On the fringe of grey bring some blue set above white and petal disks. Green is a good addition. Lay down black as tarmac. Square everything in Your life and love and happiness A tree! No less Grey like silver grey like gold grey like suits tales of old grey like hats grey, like pointer

Conscripted

Rain slaps against the windowpane. Wee! Wee! It jests and jeers. Look at our ease of water-dash and drip and fall while you – Haha! – neith’ eight nor sixteen lines have wrought on that page. It’s all for nought, despite your ink-filled fountain pen. Yes, I see the sky makes way its blue for

To the Valleys

Over the hills in this fulsome of seasons, the rains trigger migration of hartebeests in cravats. With dress suits and readings of love patient, love kind, they sniff over the morning for griddle-pan scones, white-veiled receptions, soft hands at their temples. Ah, all those summers a-toiling they bring back to the valleys as rings in

Autumn’s ripened harvest store

Black coats, black pavements, black umbrellas, the rain Nights black by 20:00. Achoos in the office. Splutters on the train. Time to switch on the heating and buy doughnuts in the morning. There has sprung the winter hunger and it will only grow — On the 19th September 1819, John Keats wrote this lilting ode