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?'

On my way to buy a morning paper #80

Traffic louder than expected
Cropped council mower circles in the grass
Full moon growing slowly larger
as it declines.

On my way to buy a morning paper #79

Hydrangea bush

Over-crowded blooms

suffocating venous crimson  

crushed and crinkle-edged with gold

leaves poison gossip green.

Holding the potential drama

       of a Victorian drawing room,

On my way to buy a morning paper #78

Beneath a sorry-looking tree of unknown type

(dusty diseased leaves, green berry clusters)

a circle of crisp and huddled leaves;

colour chart for painting virgin nipples.

Apparently there's a heatwave further south

Sky the colour of unchanged bed-sheets
from which someone rose daily
returned to every night
for days enough to count as half a year.
Weekend lie-ins
occasional masturbation
merging with the slough of skin
and grubby rare-washed feet.

On my way to buy a morning paper #77

A short man (squat?)
black-clad
(impression of a cloak)
shiny black curls
clutching several bits of shopping
and singing, deep-voiced and loud
Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah'.

From my window

The vividness of a wet red car
against the new-soaked green of fresh-mowed lawn
and baby hawthorn leaves