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

The game

I know you better with my eyes closed: the blindfold’s bluff. (c) Dec. 2016 Fragonard’s painting above and its partner, “The See-Saw” are discussed in this short clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGLpQDFOfZM

We chose to take a ride

Habits are habits In a friendly coincidence, we pretended not to understand the fumes of heavy traffic. We chose to take a ride entirely on a road to nowhere. Nothing happened. We paid for petrol, an absurd sum, a kind of ransom. – On my calendar, I scheduled in POST for today, meaning come Wednesday

in the glow of celebration

By ribbons from branches Where are we today, you and I? Each, together? Further, closer, the same as yesterday? Suspended from our meeting- point of a hundred points, each weighing down the end of a branch. The celebration season done we will be rustled back into the box where our meeting-points of a thousand tones

Time tripped

The electricity tripped. Time fused at 05:17. I woke to the flashing. On my ‘phone 08:03. The day well underway and no new messages. I waiver over the buttons to recoup the extra hours. Inside this digital turn-back machine, once a bedside radio-clock, 05:17 is closer to that stolen other time. — This poem reminds

The forest birds know not to trust

I proceed on the outside with my daily life, all the while taking mental or handwritten notes. These observations saved ‘for writing’ often echo personal revelations. The regularity of this continues to astound me, especially as I re-post poems from this blog’s archive. It is sometimes said among writers that we are called to write what we are called to

The mask of nonsense

“It’s complicated” posted this time last year proposed a point-blank assessment of The Relationship Drama, especially as recounted by heterosexual women (as this encompasses most of my experience). It’s the “He loves me, he loves me not, why doesn’t he love me?” tune. The poet/narrator declares, none of this is complicated. Either it moves forward,

5 poems reworked

BBC Radio 3 is my station of choice. I listen to hours and hours of their programming, both on the clock radio that rests on my bedside chest-of-drawers and on iplayer on my laptop. Sometimes I schedule upcoming programmes or concerts into my diary, or mark catch-ups on my to do list. During these many

Making soup again

These days I refuse to sigh for cooked up futures. Potatoes from a friend and a bag of mixed root veg for £1 assure companionship. This bounty grated, cooked with stock and bay leaves, will be ladled out for half-a-dozen bowls dressed up with haricot beans. The appraising birds perch in the top bare branches,

A bicycle made for two (or, The Pitch)

While it’s going for a song, let’s play this dalliance. It’ll knock wind from our sails. That’s the hazard of entanglements. — Over the weekend I watched a movie about a song-writer. Many of the songs featured dreadful clichés. This prompted some fiddling of my own with clichés. The poem’s title is thanks to an