(mostly) first person poetry, prose & opinion
In the Chinese calendar, the year of the rooster starts today, 28th January 2017, so it seems a good reason to have some cockerels, roosters and chickens on the blog this weekend.
The photo at the top was taken at the Bristol Balloon Festival some ten years ago. I feel it’s a bit cartoonish to go with this poetry vignette of dawn breaking in the Spanish pueblo where I used to live, but I don’t seem to have many photos on file that are right for the topic.
Continue reading “home to roost”
A gust of wind startles
all the yellow birds of autumn
from their treetop perches
The idea of autumn leaves as birds is a recurrent theme for me, and I’ve posted several variations on the blog over the years, though not that exact phrasing, I don’t think. But it isn’t just flying leaves that are notable at this time of year.
Continue reading “autumn birds”
The train’s delayed and while I wait,
I gauge my luck – or lack thereof –
in magpies: the furl of caping wings,
and splay-tailed swoop to perch
high in the winter cage of track-side trees
whose trunks are evergreened by ivy.
The magpies were too far away to get a photo, but this blackbird seemed to think that if he sat still enough I wouldn’t notice him.
Continue reading “something awful”
outside the florist’s,
the bright chatter
of pansies.
Which is strange, really, as the word “pansy” derives from the French pensée – “thought”. It would be logical to expect them to do more thinking than talking, but they always look to me as if they are checking out the passers-by and gossiping enthusiastically.
Monday
Wind paunches the belly
of a wifebeater while
blue-black denims drip.
The kitchen drain belches suds
and she ponders ironing
white collars.
It has been attributed to me, and the poem is available online, so I don’t think there’s a big problem. I do, however, wish that they’d contacted me and told me they wanted to use it. After all, it’d be nice to be told they thought it was good. Equally, it’d be useful – though not as nice – to know if they were using it to demonstrate what /not/ to do.
I don’t seem to have posted it on the blog, so here it is:
Continue reading “in the woods”
