Returning from Penzance

Pub lunch near non-PC place called Cripplesease

against a background sound of Radiohead

and two men clacking billiard balls

interspersed with apology and exclamation.

St Ives

From within the restaurant (drinking cider, eating fish)

we are alerted to the arrival of yet another shower

by the groping at of hoods and the uprising of umbrellas.

On waking

Night sweats having put a stop to spooning,

I don’t know, when waking in the dark,

whether we slept apart by inches

or were separated by two cold feet (or more) of emptiness.

In between sentences

Shadows of the several notes and post-its

stuck to the shelf which runs above my laptop

create uneven battlements along the wall;

deterring invasion of ideas. 

5 a.m.

I dislike double glazing

for never allowing me

a clean view of the moon.

Preparing pudding

Soft, warm plums in a bowl

fast-flushed with cold water

decorate their crimson skins 

with drops of crystal silver.

Returning from town

Man and wife walk the dog.

Man holds dog.

Wife (who once harangued me about her desire to be screened for bowel cancer) carries bag of shit.

Wanting to hang washing out

It has to end somewhere, of course

but how annoying that the distant blue

to south and west

has stayed just as far away all day

and the part-blanket of cloud remained.

Plum tree

Lovely how large piles of lopped-off branches

can be corralled and made tidy

ready for next week’s recycling.

On opening the curtains

Not so much a careful observation

more a panic, thinking sky the colour of a putty rubber

meant someone had rubbed out the blue.
...

and later

something about hydrangeas –

frou-frou faded pinkness and a suggestion of talcum corsetry –

reminds me of my paternal grandmother.

Local delight

Home and to the Goa to eat.

Tables bearing deep purple carnations

render extra exotic

the near-Deep Purple intro to the music.

At York Festival of writing

Lecture hall
lots and lots of ceiling lights
lends several sets  of fingers to my shadow
without increasing  the speed with which I write

Unnecessarily pessimistic

Early, dark, from behind closed curtains

pouring rain

Later, opening reveals gold and egg blue sky

and I realise it was gusting wind

rustling black silhouetted trees.

Post mortem

Skin venous, dark and somewhat bruised

flesh scarlet-spotted, evidence of recent graze

Cutting knife and board beneath, magenta:

in preparation of a breakfast nectarine.

Husband insists

Given the choice between racket and petrol-ly smell

or daisies and damp-holding clumpage

harbouring half-rotten plums and black-spotted sycamore leaves

I know what I prefer.

Different forecast

Rowan branches  bounce beneath berry-picking blackbirds

who don’t bother picking up the dropped ones:

lacking knowledge that vermilion abundance
is a measure of the winter yet to come?

Quick-changing dawn

In the time it took to pour a pint of orange squash

the sun made pink mile-long scarves of grey

which lasted long enough for me to take two mouthfuls.

In the time it took to buy a morning paper

red-fleeced postman who lives on our estate

collects his waiting colleague and disappears.

Optimism

I have chosen a book that is less than compelling

put on clothes best described as ‘old’

and thereby negated the week’s good reasons

for doing not an iota of housework.

Mirror, mirror ...

That unflattering echoing, extra slash

one inch beside and below the corner of my mouth,

(reported last year for adding disgruntlement to my expression)

now has a burgeoning companion, mirrored, on the other side.

Starting the new month early

Day pushed out of shape by waking early and –

because I can –

reading from half three, hungry to finish the book.*

*[Glen Duncan's 'By Blood We Live', final of Werewolf trilogy. I've never before been interested in reading  of werewolves before but his writing – fiendish, hysterical ecstasy – is such that I couldn't help myself.]