Escapist’s Woods
The soothing scent of conifers
and the aroma of cut grass
haze slowly by, with dragonflies
like winged rainbows or oil stains,
and twitters fly from hidden birds
in bushes bearing yellow bloom
beneath rustling leaves as in a rush
the breeze plays branches like ocean waves.
An edge of broken rock protrudes
its dirty point from underfoot
and prods into a booted heel
as clouds erupt from dusty path,
while daisies bend their sunshine heads
away from shadows under leaves
and a beetle flutters emerald wings
but keeps its stroll along the track.
A single drop of water drips
to run along its streamy way
from blossomed branch to sweating brow,
past a blinking eye and down his cheek,
until it rests into his neck
amongst his lightly sprouting stubble
and dries above his open collar
in setting orange evening heat.
He stands with chest half-bathed in light,
the other half, with right arm bare,
shivers a little, under shadow,
and hairs stand up to catch warm air.
Alone in the woods, he flicks a hand
to ward a midge-swarm from his face,
gently steps over moss and mushrooms,
between cool boughs and into peace.
Conduiramour
I make up pictures on the floorboards
from the vantage point of my seat.
Patterns of eyes and lines of grain
peer from the floor by a wise man's feet.
I search for shapes that might make sense
or form familiar patterns there,
hidden in the beams on which we walk
without a second thought or care.
I seek some beauty or some peace,
some clearing in a shadowed wood
where tangled branches cloud the light
and blur the line between bad and good.
I shield my eyes from the dazzling glare
that glows from brilliant passing beacons
and turn away from those who may
innocently coax me to temptation.
I think, instead, of one who waits
and wishes for my swift return.
Her smiling face and open arms,
they make me wish I had not gone.
I see her dancing in a hall,
her perfect feet on a wooden floor,
and smile to realise that she’s
my very own Conduiramour.
Piss Artists
Maybe I’m just spending too much time in
the wrong places, but these days it seems that
there’s much less graffiti scribbled and scrawled
on public toilet cubicle walls,
little by way of classic “Up the Ra”
or even “I rode your Ma” and the once
inspired riposte of “Go home, Dad, you’re drunk”,
no more “Drunk octopus wants to fight”,
the crude rhymes, private public partnership
in simple acts of poetry, patterns
and coat-hanger pareidolia
high at the back of the cubicle door,
no more phone numbers over men’s first names,
no-strings promises and good-times prayers,
lonely or illicitly soliciting,
or simply setting some friend up for prank calls,
no more jokes about Arts Degrees under
the toilet-roll dispenser, and no more
ABU Premier League football banter,
no warnings, “Beware of limbo dancers”.
Maybe all the jokers are on TikTok,
the wit saved for Likes on Facebook, the lonely
hooking up on Grindr. Maybe it’s just me
who still brings a pen to the lavatory.
Birdman
You don’t see too many river birds
around suburban estates,
save for the scavenging gulls
that flood the school-yards
to fight for crumbs in the cracks
in the tarmac after break or lunch,
but then again you never miss
the things you never had –
The inky cormorants perched in gangs
on the slick smooth limbs reaching
from a submerged trunk at the centre of the stream,
water deceptively calm around it,
the current’s power disguised
beyond its dark mirror-surface,
The shock flash of firework-kingfisher,
swooping, diving, shuttling out of its delicate splash,
The slow shadows cast under a gliding heron
while another stands patient in the reeds,
alone but proud by the bank,
The thumping bell-beat of Concorde swans
and how they seem to walk on water
just before take-off,
The mother-mallard guiding her clan
all in a row for their first swim,
Until the hoot of a startled goose
ignites an eruption of starlings and crows
from fields and meadows.
It transforms the whole universe.
Familiar things become alien,
changed utterly –
A stepping back into the Cave,
dry land, a return home
after an odyssey along the Shannon,
confusing her for the Styx of Hades
or, after fruit and enlightenment, Eden.
Playing With Fire
There is surely something satisfying in stoking the ashes of a dying fire,
beyond some abstract or symbolic sense, a very real comfort
in the welcoming warmth or the gorgeous orange glow of hidden embers
flaring like favourite memories ready to live again with the right fuel and fresh air,
the naive thrill of playing with danger, the power in knowing all that you have burned
and what you could yet destroy, erase, wipe out, reduce to dust, ashes to ashes,
scattering remnants through the gaps in the grate, a quick cosmetic cleaning of the fireplace,
just chalky detritus left to smoulder underneath, hidden behind the bars of the guard.
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