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

They’re purple but blue better rhymes

They’re purplebut blue better rhymes The hyacinths nosing uswith their blooming scent.Us – the other houseplants,the fridge, the drying linenon the clotheshorse,the competing scented candles.The bold blue hyacinthsexude regardlessand bloom out of their pot. 01/04/2018 — The fridge is humming this morning as I sit at my table and prepare this post. I woke before

Last time for 2016

At the elm spring five birds sat in the trees hoping that the coming year is filled with All is well. 31/12/16 Other poems about the shift to the New Year A New Room in the glow of celebration Clementi Brings in 2013

He could not pause too long

Along a back road He set off from the village when the blossoms dropped their petal tears and the green buds bid to escape from the branches. While walking along a back road, he was stopped First by an old woman who bent over a stick. The stick gave way on the path. The old

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

Supportasse Boughs

Supportasse Boughs The blossoms have come! The blossoms are here. On parade, white ruffs of spring’s courtiers. 24/3/2015 — Today I present the second of the two poems about spring blossoms. These lines, indeed like those of “March Burst” (posted last week) and many of my ‘sushi’ poems, owes a debt to Ezra Pound’s “In

The first of two poems about blossoms

On March 2nd when I woke up, I opened my curtains as usual. My first view is of the neighbour’s tree at the bottom of the garden. What had been bare brown branches across the winter had exploded seemingly overnight into white blossoms. It felt as though spring come. The poem ideas started to percolate.

Spring Wants

The poet wants new curtains, please. Yellow and white, in a gingham print of medium squares; lined in white cotton. The light will stream through across the room and catch the duvet on the bed in a stroke of sunny warmth, The poet wants new curtains, please. New ones that don’t slump from hooks that

Spring returns

“In an English Spring-Time” is often well received at readings. Last month I made a visit to Cambridge with a friend. (No, not the same person of the poem.) At my request we sought out the shop that sells the amazing Chelsea buns. I now have the establishment’s name. It is Fitzbillies. Their buns are

Interior Holdings

A turn to the inside, draws out liquorice laces, long and sweet to suck and chew; This turn to the inside locates in other corners of the paper-layered drawer small tacks of past stings — Scheduling a poem every day for a month (from 18 Jan. to 19 Feb.) made me feel impressively productive. Now