
Stranded.
I don’t want to be stranded
like Robinson Crusoe
on an island
of pain
with no rescue in sight
another weekend;
so, doc,
can you fill out
the prescription again
that one with real bite?
Stranded.
I don’t want to be stranded
like Robinson Crusoe
on an island
of pain
with no rescue in sight
another weekend;
so, doc,
can you fill out
the prescription again
that one with real bite?
Quilt.
Lynne is weaving a quilt
based on a pattern
in the happy cancer ward.
Do you ever deviate from it?
The pattern? I ask.
Rarely, she says.
If I do things can go horribly wrong
but sometimes, she says with a tinkle
in her voice,
they can go wondrously right.
Fork.
There’s something special about a small wooden fork.
Small, slender, artisanal.
Things just taste better with them.
Apple and cinnamon muffins, for one.
Strawberry shortcake.
And this explosion of a pavlova my daughter made,
the slice I’ve just eaten,
mango and whipped yoghurt
which gave this poem its prod.
People Chat More in Pools.
People chat more in pools.
You walk up and down.
Say hello.
You talk, share stories,
laugh, banter,
trade histories.
Find your tribe.
It’s like being in a pub
without the alcohol
or in church
without Jesus.
You slip under the nylon ropes,
do a few laps,slip back
then chat some more.
You can even write poems in pools.
I go to gym a few times a week too
but people chat more in pools.
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.
The One No One Wanted.
It was the one no one wanted
The last one on the shelf
The one no one wanted, I didn’t
Much want it myself.
But there were no others
So I had little choice
The one that all had shunned
I purchased myself.
And Oh it fitted the bill
To the nth degree
So the one no one wanted
Was the right one for me.
*pic pinterest
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
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
Kiss Curl .
I love the way the wind
plays with my hair
when I whisk along the road
windows wound down
twirls my comb-over
into a kiss curl
like Bill Hayley in the fifties.
Rock around the clock, baby.
*pic courtesy of pinterest
Axe Throwing
My daughter has been Axe Throwing with some friends from work.
Apparently it is the new thing.
It’s a bit like darts only more dangerous,
I’ve been hit with a dart in the hand,
Being hit with a hatchet would be a totally different thing.
People are encouraged to bury the hatchet in the target not in each other.
This is not ‘Vikings’.
It looks like fun. I’m thinking of going along.
But I keep thinking of real heads I’d like to bury the hatchet into.