Late Autumn sun
Lift the blinds
Sun streams through
and strokes me
spread on the soft blue sheets
in my striped woolen jumper
and I purr
Afternoon Delight
miniatures
Improper
I know it was a bit improper
to peer over her shoulder
but instead of the Bible on her lap
a copy of Northanger Abbey sat
Short Shorts
Breathe.
I watch the shirts
On the line
Breathe in and out
Letterboxes.
They line up along
The footpath mouths open
Hungry for mail.
Exercise.
That black bug
Stretching wings, legs
Doing tai chi on the page.
Trigger.
That rustling in the hedge
A short story
Stirring into life
Egg.
Bald and black
As an emu’s egg, the helmet’s hatched
A biker’s head.
Little Orphan Poems
- Zing.
What do you want? she asks.
A zing of apricot.
A zing of apricot?
Yes, a zing of apricot and lavender jam
to set me off.
2. Frustration.
Fuss, fiddle,
turn, twiddle,
push, prod,
nup, o god !
3. The Possibility of a Poem.
No sooner does the head hit the pillow
than the possibility of a poem
taps you on the head.
4. My Mother, the Drama Queen.
I feel like the wreck of the Hesperus,
the Lusitania and the Titanic
rolled into one
- pic courtesy of Wiki Commons
Submariner
Submariner.
When I’m tearing up the pool
a one-lap wonder
& my goggles come loose
& the water rushes in
I feel like
a submariner
on the
Kursk.
*pic courtesy of pexels
Breviary
K’s fond of haiku,
Michael senryu, its jokey cousin;
Mia, ‘a struggling author’ writes tiny tales,
Richard American sentences,
put them together,
and what have you got?
a slim, selection
of shorts,
a breviary of brevities
a pocket book of poems
for the wee small hours
Ramshackle
Ramshackle ….
I’ve made the place neat and tidy just ramshackle enough
so it looks lived in
*pic courtesy of pinterest
Tongues
on Xmas radio, divine eloquence: ‘Nessun Dorma’, Pavarotti singing in tongues
- pic courtesy of pinterest
A Short Venomous Tale
A Short Venomous Tale
It is the venomous time of evening.
Sun setting. Close and muggy.
Her eyes dart around like mosquitos.
zeroing in on the small group at the edge of the pool
sipping G & T’s.
She settles on her prey, the malicious Minerva.
Punctures her composure, draws blood.
She will not be swatted.
She is feeling positively encephalitic.
*pic courtesy of pinterest
Ants
Ants
1
Like angry black hairs
the ants scatter everywhere
when I discover them
under the hem
of the water drum
2
They are like
runaway exclamation marks
on their side
their heads
the full stops
3
A year after the gulf war
I stayed with a friend in the states
who suffered a home invasion
of ants .
He sprayed , stamped , stomped
on them
till his house was clean .
That’s what Bush should have done
with Saddam he proclaimed
4
There are no ants in heaven
a priest explained to us at school .
Some how they got beneath the creator’s gaze
like cockroaches , rats and spiders .
They have no souls .
Kill with impunity
5
Smidgins of black , dashes.
a black din of limbs
an amokery of midnight slivers
through a crack in our world
they got in
*pic courtesy of pinterest
John Malone 