On my bookshelves

An increase in black-spines to forty-one
since last summer
all ‘research’ of course.

On my way to buy a morning paper #31

Overnight precipitation
creates a pink calligraphy
of garden worms

Not what you learn as children

The frogs in our pond
aren’t story-book green
but slip-slimy algae-slab brown
and sometimes the females are pink.

Pruning

A dozen vivid orange branch ends
robin objects loudly
from the adjoining apple tree

Stones from four days in Edinburgh

1 brief stop for lunch
England 3, Scotland 2
white flagpoles on the border
north of Berwick

2 Man seen in Princes Street
Blue woolly hat,
side-on cadaverous cheekbones
attractive
An hour later
full face tragic and gaunt
in Rose Street

3 from a coffee shop in Nicolson Street
Scarlet 'Shelter' embroidered shirts
Callow compassion, clipboard questioning
of white-cockaded mid-teen cadets
forcing pedestrians into the gutter.

4 from the Hotel du Vin
Window table overlooking
urinal style white tiles
candle flames echoing repetition
beyond the black horizoned blind

Inexplicable

Bright blue foam packaging

right-angled inserts

inexplicably reminiscent
of an unrecalled childhood experience

of a hospital operating theatre

On my way to buy a morning paper #30

Sycamore leaf
sere and somersaulted
scuttles across the tarmac road
brown-red of crab paste

from the dining room window #2

The pond overlaid again
with another sheet of
ripple-striated
dirty mud-brown glass

What's in a name?

I suppose there might be dafter names for a pair of shoes
and I've heard of eating one's hat
but ... really?

On my way to buy a morning paper #29

Two days in succession

a discarded cotton handkerchief

one blue edged, the other red,

Never ever spotted one before

no explanation

Books - they colour and add life to an otherwise pale and faded room
and very often to a ditto existence.





Bookshelves - they sometimes help to organise,
sometimes just keep them off the floor.

Studio - messy and neglected

Accusing me for having stayed away
for making coloured pictures using words
not aluminium plates and acid
nor tile grout patterned onto card
not ink
but if I tidy everything away
I know it will be ten times harder to restart.

My office, upstairs, eastern-facing, room

Antelope applied in 1988
or thereabouts
the walls too covered, room too full
to even think about re-painting.
And anyway, the colours change enough
albeit slowly.

On my way to buy a morning paper #28

Fierce red
a slitted furnace glow
a chorus
reminiscent of what once was Corus

Spare bedroom

Mediterranean merit here
offering yellow and blue
a carefully-selected corner
ignoring the chaos beyond
and the dirty brown day
outside the window

Neglected

Observation only ever in this room
when we have visitors
Otherwise the tattered shabbiness
of my ever-favourite, multi-coloured Habitat settee
does not impinge.

Fruitbowl

Unripe Williams pears
shape still voluptuous
bitter green gives the lie
nowt but pained frustration

 And now I've photographed them

I see an imitation 'Conversation Piece'

as made by Juan Munoz

displaced

A displaced, enforced day of different time scales,
lots of unknown people forcibly incarcerated
in a lecture situation, bombarded by statistics
not helped by maroon curtains and the unremittingness of grey

in the bathroom

Already condemned, abused and doomed

for a seventies avocado suite

I’ve compounded the error by painting the walls

chalky emulsion Etruscan red

On the bedroom wall

Vivid against the wall whose blue

delivered a similar buzz

to the exhibitions the posters advertise

carborundum prints of Hughie O’ Donoghue

paintings of Prunella Clough

Coloured rooms - dining room

All the sell your house daytime TV programmes
show garish naked rooms,
colour declared a statement of error,
but I love my colourful rooms
(although this IS the only two colour one!)

from the dining room window

Green-dirty greyness of the frozen pond

birds-foot scuffing damage to the bank

negates the crisply pristine whiteness 

The sky last night at half past four ...

Something of rosewater
sickly and cloying
fondant and foil-wrapped,
least favourite filling
from a Black Magic box.

Right before my eyes

Five yellow post-it notes
scribbled pencil marks
bunting reminders
stark against the blackness of the screen

On my way to buy a morning paper #27

More colour in the world today –
subtle grays, no longer black and orange –
yet I have  Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’ in my head;
take time to wonder why
and recall a sports page headline
something to do with India and cricket.

On my way to buy a morning paper #26

Ragged pennants, princeling pale

against the French grey sky;

blackbird pipes potential victory

[As last year, I intend to post a coloured stone every day during February]