On the whole kindness equals weakness thing,
I question any ****-nettle licking bulldog
who with merry abandon will slobber, chase and
bark bark bark at tired rabbits
to hide the bare patch where real ***** should be

Glorious, true strength comes from settling into
another’s shoes and sadness
and making both a little lighter
while still achieving arbitrary, stunted targets
set by dim witted stumps getting paid way too much

Hawthorn breaks a smile in the hedgerow,
whispers a truth
that, easily forgotten, delights again
and the indoor pain is lifted a little

The green is almost angry
demanding attention like a fat toddler
or peacocking buffoon
that somehow still wins hearts

I cried yesterday
despite spring’s giving relief as backdrop
anticipating a warmth
that still evades my fingertips

Friday night fleeing from the scrum
like the last thing on our minds
are other people’s kids:
the outrageous, hysterical bashing we take
hour by hour as
we
just
try
while each successive boss quickly forgets front lines
and asks for ‘evidence’
of piling into the meat grinder

Then something tiny reminds
why we’re even here:
a flood of tears perhaps as dogs have died
or that kid who says “I’m a microwave
bzzzzzzzzz”
and despite our glowering frowns
we smile so hard we cry

I forget myself sometimes
in nettles and dead wood
as feet step on, envious of small things
that skip through barbed brambles
like ladder rungs to new space

I’ll content myself with lungs of open air
and try to care less about slings and arrows
and my Brobdingnagian clump

to be allowed here is enough

Most of us wrestle our ball of twine:
the more we struggle to catch an end and untangle,
the deeper our fumbling takes us

for some the fight twists dark,
the yarn becomes barbed wire
and they bleed loose in many small ways

for others the yarn dwindles
microfilament caught
eternally wriggling on the end hook

I call to you now and give quicksand advice:
stop still and calm and rest,
look about you and a hand will come

This ground was thirsty
by god thirsty
been cracking and cursing for months
with only the vaguest hunch of a possible deluge

so these rains were drunk in abandonment
and the angry soil has yielded
soft underfoot, a sole cwtch
to be savoured, felt

the stream, so feeble last week
has remembered its fatness,
wetness, strength
recalling a bearing
thoughts are borne once again
with vigour to the constant sea

Green shoots,
little shocks of brilliance
from mouths so oft distracted
tis a wonder they’re not more malnourished

the courage to give an opinion
on long dead white kings of literature
who speak Christ knows what but it ain’t English
is, as they themselves may say, lit

my tired soul has read the lines so oft
I feel peppered for all this,
so finding out Romeo is now a simp,
has the hot blood stirring again