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.

From my window as I drink coffee

Skeins of dirty sheep dag clouds
Dry hawthorn undramatic brown
Through which a serrated glimpse of golf club green
To the soundtrack of BSA A 10.

On my way to buy a morning paper,

Over-optimistic blackbird
singing that it's Spring