From the corner of my eye

A black and white, super-furry seat cover
deceives me into seeing, momentarily,
a dalmatian in the driving seat

Imprinted behaviour

Never mind that we’ve had this dishwasher several years
I still step back to avoid the dripping from the door
of the previous one.

From my upstairs window

Sandwiched between the background of iced grass
and the sparrow-coloured  sparse-twigged hawthorn hedge
a Sunday parade of buggy-dragging golfers

On my way to buy a morning paper #25

Sadly, the stooped caution of the woman

crossing the potentially icy road

belies the high-flagged confidence

of her vivid scarlet coat.

Influence

Awaiting Amazon’s delivery

of the next Mark Billingham

I begin A.L. Kennedy's 'Paradise';

immediately feel altered impact

and glad I resisted Pride and Predj.

On my way to buy a morning paper #24

Pat, of the dirty smoker's laugh
usually in black but today a bright pink fleece
and I try to remember whether
she used to be a head teacher
or was it something I made up
in Alan Bennett mode?

Yes I know, but now and then, OK?

Smug pleasure as snug
as my tight black jeans
that at sixty-plus
I'm not wearing a nice mauve cardy
and a serviceable-coloured skirt

On my way to buy a morning paper #23

Recycling bags
straight-sided and close-packed
along the half-dark pavement edge
An instant, urban Giorgio Morandi

Requires no imagination

Low sun through the kitchen window
across the white worktop
where I wiped with a too wet cloth:
casts shadows, makes lace.

Hope MuDJoB is safe-housed

Fractals of red in my overnight wine glass
illustrate my concern felt on hearing
of an overnight fracture of earth in Chiapas

Dilemma

The jigsaw he did last week, when ill
is still sitting on the dining table
Now he's better can I clear it?
Or do I need to wait
until he decides he's well enough?

Seen from the bedroom window

He wears an army parka
balaclava
goggles over eyes
Holds a chainsaw double-handed
and he's chopping down the trees

Artistic licence?

The hero in the novel I am reading
receives a beating.
Lies there, blood-stained, mucus, vomit, piss,
and I wonder how he ever regains his self-esteem
sufficiently to fully function later.

Lost time

Waking at seven instead of five
I am surprised at how quickly midday arrives

Winter art

Scraping frost from the glass
white from black interior
I see another version
of Tony Bevan's 'Rafters'

On my way to buy a morning paper #22

Rectangles delineated
by patches of part-frozen ice
scraped from a now-departed car.

End is nigh?

Silence unnaturally thick
and from the window, nothing, very still.
Too easy to believe we're about to tumble off the edge

On my way to buy a morning paper #21

Glorious pink promise
dish of dawn
spiced with a scattering
of silhouetted geese

Padding, not plagiarism

Stories in songs
sung by Dylan and Knopfler
add substance
and voice
to my fictional heroes

Dance class at the gym

Seen from behind
one woman oddly lacking grace,
out of synchronicity
with the others in the row

Someone else's jigsaw

my fingers itch
pick up the pieces
place correctly
withdraw quickly
hide them once again

On my way to buy a morning paper #20

A creamy cloud-escaping moon
an unaccustomed quantity of cars
a startling crow
inject a sense of urgency into the dawn

At the gym

a set of silver handweights
graduated on a stand
spine of stegosaurus
over-exercised

Ninety minutes late for the paper

Mis-matched same-age schoolboys
uniform failing to disguise
the randomness of puberty

Six thirty a.m.

Slow-tolling radiator
cracking pipes
creaking floorboards

Saturday

The house to myself for a whole day
first time in ages
and I am as a long-tethered balloon.

On my way to buy a morning paper #19

Lilac clouds this morning
and I ponder on the possibility
of purple rain.

Birthday present

A newly unflat-packed bookcase
offers an empty opportunity
to pleasurably refill.

On my way to buy a morning paper #18 (late)

Clouds both pink and blue,
hedging bets:
sex not yet determined.

Heard from my bed

Rolling roaring wound round balls of wind
hyphenated by the clatter of the letterbox

Silos from the M5

Low sun partly-shadowing
pewter
against a hill of
stubbled bronze

M shed, Bristol

Four dockside cranes
etchable abstraction,
and diamond-mounted squares
in shades of grey.