Everything Small and Modest

Everything Small and Modest

Robert looks happy here.

Eyes lit up like lamps

full of wonder..

He is on one of his long walks

from the asylum,

He has spotted something.

Perhaps it is a wood pigeon

clearing its throat.

Or a song thrush balancing on a twig,

beak open ready to burst into song.

Everything small and modest

is pleasant and beautiful. Robert declared.

He looks dapper here, and in good  health

certainly better that he did when he was found

dead in the snow that Xmas day in’ 56,

the photograph that ghouls pore over.

He didn’t write much in those last years

at the asylum , letting himself off the hook,

declaring, I am here to be mad, not to write.

• pic courtesy of pinterest

Without My Eyes

Without My Eyes.

I’m going out today

without my eyes

seeing without hunting

for an image to click

to post on my blog.

I’m going out today,

fresh, unprepared,

no clunky phone in my top pocket,

without my camera eyes,

just to see and hold,

and like the kind fisherman,

then release.

One Perfectly Round Ear

Locked between his headphones

the scraggly haired beachcomber

scours the beach with his detector

its one perfectly round ear

listening to talk-back from the sand

music to his ears :

dollar coins , gold ear rings

or bottle tops , tin cans —

relics of summer’s empire .

On and on he goes

in his hand a miniature red spade

and a blue bucket of hope

• pic courtesy of Wiki Commons

Greedy Gubbins

Greedy Gubbins.

I want to get up.

I want to see how much my eyes

have swollen,

want to see Kokki dash across the court

in his tiger shorts after his prey,

want to see those arum lilies again

trumpet their hosannas to orange,

want another pod coffee

another shot of Bailey’s

just a thimble full

but my partner sees me passing by.

You should rest your eyes, she says and I say,

too much to see,

and I know what she’s about to say

even before she says it:

my mummy would have called you,

a Greedy Gubbins, she’ll say

and then she says it,

Ouch!

Butterflies of my Mind

The Butterflies of my Mind.

I was out among the fields, here one more time

Vigorously out hunting the butterflies of my mind

All the poems, the stories that had given me the slip

And would it seem once more; I had to be quick.

All the bright, beautiful things just beyond my net

Any moment now I’ll snare one; damn! Not just yet

Sea Slugs

This world — we’ll never see the end of it.

So much beauty, above and below.

And just when you thought you’d seen it all,

up pops the Photographic Exhibition on Sea Slugs.

Slugs! The very name invites disdain, derision.

But these are something else: an artificer’s folly,

a frolic of design and colour, of quirky geometries

and improbable beauty — and there are 3000 varieties!

What practical use, what purpose, if not to delight?

Later I trawled through the depths of the web and emerged

staggering, reeling ; & that strange word, ‘nudibranch’

• pic courtesy of Wikipedia

Like Mary Oliver Did

I’ve failed.

I got my sea slug poem

but not the one about yr cataract

how when it was removed

& the dressings came off

you went out into the world

like Mary Oliver did

amazed at all you saw.

going Wow! Wow!

yr little expostulations of beauty.

Reminiscing Rainbows

Reminiscing Rainbows

We were reminiscing rainbows at the writers’ workshop when the mentor

snapped: Get out of the picture. You’re spoiling the view. Let the vision

remain. So I did. I got out and wrote this:

A bright rainbow

scythes

the air:

a gentle crop

of rain

I Do My Best Work in Bed

I do my best work in bed, she said.

I do my best work in bed.

When all is said and done,

I do my best work in bed.

Scurry beneath the covers,

pull the sheet up over my head.

I do my best work in bed, she said.

I do my best work in bed.

It’s where my magic garden is,

my fantastic flower bed

where poems and images blossom

& music plays in my head.

Some think better sitting up,

but I’m too easily misled.

I do my best work in bed, she said.

I do my best work in bed.

• pic by Pinterest
• * have you a special place where you find inspiration?

The Perfect Tea Spoon

It is the perfect tea spoon

small

slender

stubby handled

like the pen

I write with

snug as a haiku

in my hand

ready to stir

the sullen brew

to life

• have you a special piece of cutlery or a small everyday item that is dear to you?