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Friday 5 February 2021

Alphabetical

All around are artefacts

Bought, brought, befriended

Corners checked, crossovers crossed

Down deep, deeper down, deep depths

Except elongations, elongated exceptionally easily

For flowers, for floods, for Flodigarry

Goes, go, great garrulous Gorbals

High, higher, heavy, heavier, hiatus

Inside, in, inward, indescribable indeed

Joy, joy, joy jumps, jeeps, Jasmine, Jerome K Jerome


Thursday 4 February 2021

Weathered

I felt good

One footstep after another

Up the stairs to the landing

I felt light

It was light

Though I had climbed these stairs earlier

In the dark of night

Then I was caught, woken from sleep, in pain

But now I could go anywhere

And I found a book

Which might once have fallen in the bath


Wednesday 3 February 2021

Of This Place I Know

Three miles to the city
Six songs for the heartbreak
Follow the instincts
Of Saturday nights and Sunday mornings

And if you don’t reach
That place where you were going
Do not be surprised
That the absences come calling

Six pounds sterling to and from the city
Six foot-stompers for the stomping
Follow the emotions
Of Saturday nights and Sunday mornings


Tuesday 2 February 2021

Royalty, Almost

The silence is broken by the cry of a child

That the lack of light

Is used to evoke the mystery

Of the night of the daring raid

The glass is left

As cut out by the robbers

A rectangular opening

Just large enough

To lift the tiara through

Whispered voices add to the atmosphere

Of loss, and magisterial bindings

And thieves or vagabonds



Monday 1 February 2021

Projected Observations

The knurled foot of the sofa is leaning

It does rather need straightening up

The teacup is also at an angle

Yet sits reasonably content on the radiator

Today the socks are red and yellow, green and purple

How could they not lift your spirits

The music is by Gorecki

From his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

I hope you might pause to listen

I will

During which time nostalgia may be abroad

Concert halls, cathedrals, monastic abbeys

With streetlights, spotlights, and cool water flowing

Also smiling eyes, smiling through vales of tears