Violence

Spurted and smeared black purple stains
blood-red slashed and dashed
fallen fig leaves imperfectly hiding
some berry type of crime.

Weather

Despite the fact that I knew it was about to do its worst
I couldn't help revelling in the ominous variety of bruise colours
in the fast-approaching clouds

Not Glenn Miller

An S-shaped string of separated pearls
across the garden path
catching the sunlight
and deposited by snails

Well-remembered, otherwise

The sight of a solitary dog-rose reminds me
it was June when we became engaged
(but I never did remember the date)

On my way to buy a morning paper #40

A harsh pink scrunch of colour
in the gutter
a crumpled screwed-up body scourer
(but no body, phew!)

Some birds

When they are not flying
some birds run
some hop.
I wonder if they a) do both
and b) if so, why?

Proof-reader perceptions

Daughter tells me first chapter promises much that the book fails to deliver
Neighbour says she found it hard to start ...
I, grateful for their many other insights
embark on a major re-write ...

At the gym

Choosing a treadmill downwind of a girl
who reeks of some obnoxious scent
I last two minutes.

A first!

Woodpecker on the plum tree
starting from the trunk and working upwards
slim pickings, and at the top he flew away.

Migraine thinking

No, not a full-blown one (I thankfully don't have those)
just the blank unseeing middle bit
but in my brain ...

Art in odd places

Framed by the window of the gym
the interior of the steelyard sheds
vaguely grey-brown, with a line of warning signs
a painting by Prunella Clough.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clough-broken-gates-t07318

Monday thoughts

Since too much of me is over-fleshed
and fails to function as it did
I take pleasure from my hands' dexterity
performing daily tasks

At Tynemouth station bookfair

A regular and mildly worrying
repeated thumping thud
turns out to be a pushchair
bumping down the wooden steps

Don't know why, but ...

What I assumed were wasps
(because they were, last year)
are obviously bees
multiplying, flying round haphazard
but I assume not hazardous
to me

On my way to buy a morning paper #39

Bedraggled, once-were-exotic irises:
crinolined ladies after a ball

At breakfast

Momentary alarm
before remembering
that microwaved apricots
smell like charred wood
and again for 'macaque'
before remembering
the word is 'maquette'

Virtue ...

... is receiving a parcel from Amazon
just as I leave for the gym
and waiting until I return 
before opening it.

no gardener, me

A scattering of tiny blue flowers round the pond
neither speedwell nor forget-me-not
so I am clueless.

After day of wondering

The faintly-heard whispering, rasping vibrations
I've been blaming on aliens or neighbours
is realised to be wasps under the eaves

Bunting

Two stout frowning ladies
suspend bunting from an ugly ornamental wall
oblivious of the several dozen drawing pins
scattered, point up, by their gate

Time passes

Shocked to read how different life was 'then'
when I so well remember the very recent
Silver Jubilee.

New month, and back to small-scale observations ...

Dandelions, forced up between slab and wall
brace themselves
as if to face a firing squad