Category: poetry
Following the loss of his right leg, the clothes-peg had nothing left to do but pierce the skin of the occasional bare toe. He shivered shameful rusting joy at every holler.
The gossiping plant has out-talked its pot. Its stories, all of them lies, are rootbound. Wound in circular knots until they’ve snarled into just one big frivolous fabrication.
The mug handle gripes without curves to grip onto. In its absence, fingers burn and a friend doesn’t take milk. Unbaked clay is lactose intolerant.
Such a self-serving place-mat. Narcissism is a crotchety weave in purple and brown. Pull a thread and it’s done, undone.
Cold.
Cold shoulders. Cold heart.
So they say although how would they know?
Tongue picking at teeth for the grits
Of peanut butter.
Filling the fissures you can always feel but never see.
Imagine being allergic?
Planes – that’s where it all goes wrong.
Long trips and spicy dips and look now
At the rain carrying on down the window like a bloody party
Of wet dreams and tight seams.
We interrupt this broadcast with a public service announcement.
Would someone on the Zoom call please feed the cat?
Not comfortable
Sitting here on a strained glute.
Shoot from the hip or shoot for the stars
What’s the difference really?
They’ll all drop like pinballs.
Wrong word, have lost the word
Pins, that’s it, in their tetractys
Shit, my memory these days
Winding down rabbit holes
Looking for syllables
Give me strength
The lengths I go to to stop climbing the walls.
We interrupt this broadcast with a public service announcement.
Would someone on the Zoom call feed the bloody cat?
Boiler purring in the next room
Grumbling and rumbling and pumping out the heat
Delete the sleet, counting sheep
Half asleep.
You there, all of you
In your small frames on my big screen
I scream for ice cream
The night takes flight
Something’s wrong
It’s a false alarm, fake news
Some folk write in a hut
I write here, austere
Too warm now on the top floor
We interrupt this broadcast with a public service announcement
Would someone on the Zoom call prioritise the blasted cat?
Blasted. Now that’s a word I can pick apart with my tongue
Bla sted. Blas ted. Blast ed. Blah Blah Blah.
Bla for me. The rest for all of you.
Blasted, fasted
We’ll all be fasting soon
Lent or rent or virus
Everything conspiring against us.
I was never going to be Miss Scotland
Specky Four Eyes weren’t winners
Scribblers maybe, collectors definitely
A Christmas beetle in a box
A numinous smell in a suitcase
Joined-up writing in a red rubber band
But how do you store the sound of rain
On a hot tin roof
Or the rocking of an iron horse that had long lost its mane
And most of its tail?
Your death sat between us
Dead centre on the table
Flanked by the Pinot Grigio and a tossed salad
Spoken of like a coffee morning or a game of whist
..
You were wearing shorts
I’d laughed and you laughed with me
You wanted the sun on your skin
No one could deny you that
..
You fluttered away in early summer
An autumn leaf blown off course
A bird lifting off from the wire
A rare moth swallowed by the dawn
..
There was a celebration of your life
Your plan, your day
My words the frantic swarm of sanderlings
Jostled by waves on the incoming tide
SANDERLINGS 