From out of nowhere

After lunch, deciding to come upstairs, I glanced at the kitchen clock.
'Quarter to two' I said to myself.
And immediately heard the 'bing-a bong, bing-a bong' which followed those three words
on 'Listen with Mother'
which I doubt I have done since 1952.

Eating out in Adelaide

Table tilted twixt pavement and the street.  Trams hoot and judder behind. In front a parade intent on Saturday night, from posh to poverty. Gentleman's Club video plays behind tinsel-haloed angel-winged passer by and Abo intent on stealing serviettes is arm-locked and tumbled to the floor. Twice.

Bar in Darwin's Mitchell Street

"Two pints of Fifty Lashes. please."

"Pints? Big glasses?" Barmaid indicates with hands apart. Takes one from depths of storage to show us.
"Yes", we nod, mildly bemused.

Darwin, Adina

Waking in hotel room
trying to remember
the contours
Was that a recess?
Are there Venetian blinds?
Then colours come
and shapes
Some blue into the mocha of the room

Last night's Indian meal - cultural adjustment

Four deep-dyed Scousers
returning, from their conversation,
from a boxing event,
several times demand samosas
buttonly once say 'fuck'.

All changes when three locals
take a table across the aisle
whereupon they trade four-letter words,
friendly as could be.

On my way to buy a morning paper #86

Just round the corner
a banana skin
so fresh I guess the dropper
still chewed the final bite.

Three or four steps on, a rose
whose pale fat swollen pinkness
imitated mouth-cloying scented fondant.

And on return, I win my bet -
the banana skin uplifted and flown elsewhere.

On my way to buy a morning paper #85

Squealing of gulls
winding of well-handles
needing oiled.

5.55 a.m. From my office window

Early morning pink
like cotton-bolls
short lived
and quickly fade to palest grey.

On my way to buy a morning paper #84

On returning from the still-shadowed cool
the warmth of the house
more welcoming than stifling
I kept my cardigan on.,

Awake

Thrown up from beneath the Hamnavoe

white against a blue-black sea

an endless chorus of can-can dancers

froth of lacy petticoats

legs lengthening.

On my way to buy a morning paper #83

I know the name for them is not begonias

(but cannot currently recall what the right one is)

and, remembering sun-bleached crèpe paper

(used for 1950s shop window dressings),

dislike them for the colour-fading of their flowers.

On my way to buy a morning paper #82

Reading this week about ravens –

the death of one, the threat should they all leave –

the crumpled blackness in the centre of the road

brought apprehension.

Closer, small relief:

only a gold-lettered M&S bag,

recently discarded.

Keep fooling me

Long-dead apples
shrivelled and brown
cling to bare branches -
chilly winter birds.

On my way to buy a morning paper #81

Car-shape dryness
in otherwise wet road
signifies an overnight stay
its placing -
anonymous, unclaimed -
suggesting illicit,
adulterous.
I look around and wonder
'Who?'