5-7-5 (take one-hundred-and-fifty-seven : happy birthday)

the day you were born
the world chose to welcome you
with the broadest smile

Commuting Tails (part one : red squiggle)

across the street
a squiggle ran
surprised to see the sun
it’s fussy tail
behind up right
a flag for everyone
who at this hour was driving
without required care
so as to not get flattened
from here to over there

5-7-5 (take one-hundred-and-fifty-six : eventide)

stood under red skies
her face lit in twilight’s glow
delighting shepherds

cum mortius in lingua mortua

in dreams
I speak in tongues
guided not
by mania
nor incomprehensible
supernatural
forces,
the words
come from within
are already
perfectly formed
and understood
completely
by those
who have
travelled to my dreams
before me
and made themselves
at home

Cap’n Cat (unfinished)

there’s a pirate on the underground
complete with tricorn hat
though he doesn’t have a parrot
he’s carrying a cat
it’s sitting quietly on his lap
giving me quite the look
as the urban corsair
feeds him from his hook

rep-tile nonsense

Lizards can’t do jigsaws
although they think they might
they just end up eating bits of sky
in one happy snappy bite

A Song About Debussy

Debussy kept his Mars bars
underneath his tray
He hid them from Rachmaninov
who’d nicked his Milky Way
He tried to hide his M&Ms
but Sergei was too quick
but never mind Claude did think
all those sweets will make him sick
in infinite variations
Rachmaninov’s tummy roared
and by its second movement
he threw up over Claude.

A Time To Sow

once written
in longhand
on a small piece
of yellow paper
these lines
I plan on
planting
deep
in the moist
welcoming
earth
behind my house
in the hope
(for poets still believe in hope despite ourselves)
that come
the summer’s end
new words of
wonderful colours
and ideas fragrant
are mine to harvest
for the fall.

Frost

there’s a frost this morning
unexpectedly born
of this star sign
though to its credit
did leave tiny diamonds
across the world
in order to account
for such cold audacity

5-7-5 (take one-hundred-and-fifty-five : reaching)

desire fills my thoughts
so I reach out to the dark
and fingers find you