Another story?

Ahead of me a young man, good looking, emerges
slipping silently from behind a tall back gate.
Crosses the road and just as silently disappears behind another
 ... ah, but if he had, he surely would have been more furtive, more dishevelled?

Before I get up

The uneven hiss and faint murmur,
occasional single spot plink,
informs me I will need boots today.

Mistakes happen

Misread the clock.
Up and dressed before I realised it was four not five.
This time a lack of careful observation
Oh well.

Decision time

A need, next week, to write, not type, sets me to wondering what’s best.

I like the fine convenience of propelling pencils
but words too quickly smudge to illegible.
Asked my daughter, who recommends fine-liner felt tips,
remember that roller balls can be so smooth,
and that biros are best not the cheapest 
and realise I need to go to Staples.

Not cricket

Overripe plums, mostly red, some grey with mould,

scatter-patterned across the lawn

less than successfully bowled from the branches above.

Geese again

Even more briefly, no more than a glimpse,

dissension resolved, two dozen or more,

in chevron, pass close by my window.

Briefly

The geese down by the unseen river,
greet the golden dawn
with what sounds like group dissension.

Misunderstood

Those sparrows, mentioned on the sixteenth,
I realise now, were not excited by the pond,
just on their lunch-hour.

Just now - 05.39

Briefly, for a moment, from the colour

the sky old fashioned blotting paper

and the clouds blue-black Quink ink

Waking thoughts, having read in one sitting yesterday.

Picked up from ‘Help the Aged’

a book the blurb for which implies it’s teenage sex.

But it turns out to be multi-levelled;

much more on family and the damage they unwittingly do

and the cloying, clutching nature of a friendship based dishonestly on guilt.

[‘A certain age’ by Rebbecca Ray]

Watched while eating lunch

A dozen or more delinquent adolescent sparrows
dart dizzily from fence to trellis to hedge,
seemingly made giddy by the recent weed-cleared pond.

On getting up at 5 a.m.

First impression through square window,
custard sky beyond the night-dark trees,
so that’s what the raucous solitary seagull
was on about just now.

Sod's law and stains

Is it that we never spill red wine on the crimson tablecloths,
or just that it doesn't show, as it does upon the creamy-beige?

Flo's toes

Three and a half, she notices a damaged toenail.
Sits down, puts foot in mouth and repairs it with her teeth.
Not knowing that one day such action won't be possible.

drugged

Observation lacking totally today
I am reading the sixth in the Lymond series
maybe for the sixth time
but I cannot put it down.

On my way to buy a morning paper #4

Pink neon reflected on the fish and chip shop tiles,

and again across the puddled tarmac of the car park,

a fractured, trailing Isadora Duncan chiffon scarf.

Although not cold enough

My slightly blurred reflection in the darkness of the double glazing,

the blackness of the frantic trees against the pewter sky,

gloomily presage November.

Deceived, deceiving

Winter ice blue sky confirmed by early morning freshness –

and yet it IS still August

7th: New-made elder sister

And Flo becomes a middle child:

vivid, argumentative,

logic unsurpassable

and forehead clear.

6th:  Nine days old

Stupidly surprising,

skinniness of limbs,

bleared blue-grey wisdom.

mouth’s silent enunciation.

5th.: Nurture or nature

Connie so competent:

five years of parenting,

or the mix of her genes?

4th:  Journey south

Clouds high, light and almost blue,

ever-present promise that the sun’s about to shine:

nevertheless there’s non-stop rain

which lasts for hours and hours.

Momentary visual dislocation

Slightly late arising

and a shock to see November fog

at a fourth of August dawn.

superfluous

Do we really need a twice-daily rag and bone man,
abbreviated shouting incoherent
and on foot?

Lunch with ex-colleagues

1.
Sociability, despite enjoyment, can be exhausting,

unlike the communing of loved and like-minded.
2.
Purporting to tell a tale against herself
she draws attention to her skinny arse.

Changes of direction and time

Rain spattering the kitchen window

tells me the wind has changed

from north to south.

I doubt the friend I will meet today

(not seen for twenty-five years)

has changed so drastically