glasses

That Specsavers is all a big scam, you know.

Not just because when they claim I’m short-sighted,

I detect a double meaning, and I swear last time the letters

Spelt out “P-R-I-C-K”— albeit split across three lines of the chart.

It’s not even the casual reminders that my eyes,

Like everything, will keep on getting weaker by the day.

It’s just that recently I’ve left the house glasses-less

So that I might soften the sharpest edges of the world.

I spotted our long-departed border collie, in the dim shape

Of a neighbour’s labrador, just far enough away— and

Where the grass bleeds between the bare tree branches

Looked something like the leaves of our last summer.

And I’d rather take another thousand split seconds

Of you, rendered in the blurry face of a stranger,

Than lose my hope to a so-called “corrective” lens.

modern problems #10

I missed the aurora borealis again,

but I don’t mind all that much.

I would rather not muse about

how small I am

when all I care to know is so small.

And I don’t have time to be reminded

that I’m at the whim of the sun

by a brief skyful of miracle

blown in on a light solar wind.

That’s why I was inside, texting you

that we’ll see each other another time

and we both revelled in the lie

that we might have a say in the matter

as the light beat against the blinds.

the snow

to everyone’s surprise, the snow just stayed…

in spite of any milder air or sporadic spells of rain.

e-scooters were abandoned in cul-de-sacs:

their lack of traction a new blemish on their cachet

with the veins of suburbia perpetually clogged.

sunday league games were still cancelled day-of,

that single tether between each teammate straining

over pints of pissy lager in a run-down village pub—

the winger’s hangover story getting yet another run out.

roads to all the schools were heart-breakingly clear,

while roads back from work swallowed up commuters

whose hopeful tyres chewed on the carpet beneath.

but couples floated home above the hostile terrain,

lighter in the soundless postscript to interior conversation,

with bright faces pressing on against the inevitable cold.

magpie #2

each day he’d round that same corner

and face the solitary magpie there—

twitching, picking at its modest hoard.

and each day he’d greet the lonely soul

softly, as though to make the case for friends,

before bearing the evening sorrow that

each one-sided meeting brought.

but one morning, when the night had

spilt into the milky sky, he couldn’t find

the patience for a promise of joy,

and walked silent where once they spoke.

now each day he rounds the corner,

absented by that persistent omen,

with doubled sorrow and loss of hope.

The park

There’s been woodland here since the first ice age.

And still the dogs succumb to primal instincts,

Pissing up trees in their imported coats.

The people play at modesty on the fishing lakes,

Cooled by the shadow of the hilltop gazebo nearby.

Flashes of eternal sun bounce off the plaques

On memorial benches that go largely unread.

The paint cracks under our irreverent hands:

A fragile notch in the timeless ground.

The ghosts pack the well-marked trails,

Joining the queue at the park café.

Then a tree bends to the verge of breaking

And, on a newfound breeze, stands again.

In the long grass

I stumble across you, in the long grass;

Half-static, beaming through the morning dew.

A quiet spot, where harsh grief slowly grew

A monument, off the well-worn daily path.

–

I’m carried this way by the faint laugh

Of a stranger, that rings like yours would ring,

Or a memory that trickles in,

And leads me here, back to the uncut grass.

–

I shook, in time, the gloomy, pious cold,

And left off my pulling at the gnarled dense

Gorse, and tore down the metal border fence,

To let nature’s plain reality take hold.

–

Now the evening sunlight splashes on the scene,

And all the birds sing knowing, cosmic rhymes.

Though the elements soften those sharp lines,

In time, all melts into all else that’s seen.

–

So, again, you will recede out of view,

When some bee stings me from this best-dreamt past,

I’ll carry on my way until, at last,

In the long grass, I’ll stop and see you.

Spring

Go on, and leave me at the brink of Spring:

In fading daylight’s gentle hum.

When darkness sails off in memories

And all is yet to come.

–

Bottle up the damp perfume,

That drips down off the setting sun,

And shrug against the growing chill,

That takes its time to come.

–

Think of me, amongst the breeze,

When all is said and done.

Then fill your mind with golden skies,

Before the night time comes.

The Magpies

He wanders in an empty field;

Firm ground

Stood at the edges of modernity.

–

The air itself breathes deeply,

Then exhales,

As though returning home.

–

The magpies hop across the ground,

Silently dignified,

He salutes this stately parliament.

–

This is the religion he has picked.

Passed on

By the corrupting mouth of man.

–

That trivial rhyme, a song of insecurity,

Pulls on the tether

Back to the past we care to imagine.

–

So there, in an ancient silence,

He prays

To tame his galloping mind.

–

Watch him at the altar,

Firmly grounded,

Outside of modernity.