On my way to buy a paper #62

Harsh echoing around the houses
of rag and bone man's archaic and distorted words
mimicking a muezzin's call to prayer.

Revelation

As green turns deep red
becomes scantier, and more orange
last winter's pennant plastic bag
reappears,
More tatty, multi-stranded than ever.

From my window

Still as death, and sky the colour of a shroud - how can one be inspired to write under such circumstances?

On my way to buy a paper #61

A passing van and, fresh from Avison Fluke,
I wonder whether Arena Physio is the driver's name?

*Avison Fluke is the detective who features in Mike Craven's first, novel, 'Born in a Burial Gown'

On my way to buy a paper #60

Someone's black cotton coat belt
lies flattened in the road
and I wonder whether, when the rain comes,
will it swim away?

Stromness, walking into town

Starlings: starry, mobile Pointillists;
several sequences of horizontal steps
in honeycomb sandstone.

Walking to Warebeth

Cormorant complains about the cut of his jacket;
others express disinterest.

Starlings

Yesterday's rehearsing-for-departure starlings
today more evenly spread;
lone one on the house next door
no longer ostracised.

Yesterday's galeforce wind

Thistledown:
several seemingly scheduled performances
dancing dervish
on the kitchen windowsill.

On waking

Breadth of his naked back
as comforting now
as it's been for nearly half a century.

4.20 am, woken by wind whistling

Imperfectly-drawn white curtains
Orange street-light
Shadow-branches on the move
A never-ending lightning nightmare
Had I been seven.

curious

Hot sun, and windy
yet, from next door,
the rumble of the tumble dryer.
All bloody day.

On my way to buy a paper #59

Fancy-petalled hollyhocks:
extra-coy dancers
at the Folies Bergere

Between Seattle and Newport

Fallen pines on dried river bed:
rutting knitted lions.

On my way to buy a morning paper #58

Half term and lack of traffic
from the road to Ingleby Barwick
meant I heard a squirrel's claws
on tarmac
from fifty yards away.

On my way to buy a morning paper #57

Sun behind my head
patching black tarmac paths
with puddled blue-sky promise.

On my way to buy a morning paper #56

Warburton's bright orange wagon
from which jumped driver, six foot four;
face of Colin Firth as Darcy
just before the river scene.
Pre-breakfast bliss.

On my way to buy a morning paper #55

Cold west wind
two improbably orange cars, unpleasantly assertive
no Telegraphs ("problem with the printing")

On my way to buy a morning paper #54

Three woollen-hatted men,
Two awaiting lifts,
Third out to walk his well-wrapped brindled hound.
Their football conversation around the red brick pillar
steaming upwards into the frosty air.

On my way to buy a morning paper #53

Rain-washed red jelly-babies
Imitating tiny turds

On a weekend with writers

Had our feet left on the floor the silvery trails our words wove in the air the pattern would've been filigree.

Chapter 15

In between Mantel and McIlvanney
I'm trying to write a conversation
using my voice.

On my way to buy a morning paper #52

Click of gate ahead of me. 

Man emerges, three squat, fluffy dogs on Karma Chameleon leads (red, gold and green)

In his other hand, a mug of tea.

Grey beads on brown

Birds like beads on the ends of up-turned braids
scatter in an instant, circle and resettle
at the sound of some invisible alarm.

From my window

The once south-blowing rectangle
of the green binsack in the tree across the road
has, after four days battling with the elements,
become north-bound three-strand, pennant,
fancy-knotted to the top-most branch.