Toward the end of it all
my knackered earth beds
sit dishevelled
like a mother’s rushed haircut

tufts of the next growth
brace for another brown-grey winter
while the last redcurrants hide,
blood dark rubies
tucked in dying leaves of neighbour bushes

in the middle, the supermarket spruce
of three years ago
waits its turn
growing done in the throng of all
while the sun played favourites

soon, in the cat pad darks
the ground will be given back to rule,
cold, empty and silent

Sometimes tears
don’t come from grief
or sudden pain,
from moments moved
by others’ stories
real or sharply imagined

Sometimes it’s just the steady
incessant
tap tap tap
of life that just won’t pause
for any cause or reason
for any chance of respite

We’ll often deny those tears
as weak
but listen as they speak
or they will never, ever stop

No poetry on Mondays
sorry
thems the rules
not even a half rhyme
a poignant metaphor
a little alliteration
or assonance

******

My blackberry love
you stain fingertips, lips and tongue
bittersweet purple
grown on a summer of promise
to end by watching the day
retreat past equinox
feels like loss
and though the longer night has virtues
there are dangers too
behind the fairy lights
and dazzled trick or treat
the immutable cold waits

Just one iota
of that teenaged brio,
utterly fearless in the way
slim life allows,
would power our souls for
whole years

fears, as they come,
are whispered on sharp minutes,
on slow hour memories,
on broken days, lost
in an oubliette
desperate for a single glimmer

youth can be reckless
self-sabotaged and trite
but by god,
there are lessons in the might of it
in spite of it
if we stop,
look
and listen

#emmaraducanu #youth #joy #riskreward #thrills #liveloud #rageagainstthedyingofthelight

To balance a justified arrogance
built by decades
against quixotic bosses
who pass through quicker
than a bout of diarrhoea
is tough

wrap your arms in the rigging
you intrinsically know
so when siren song sounds
or Scylla and Charybdis boil
you’ll still be on the boat
when spat back
to calm seas and good winds

The fabric usually feels the same
a cloth that remains soft
similar to everyday
until, perhaps, a stain
a rip, a tear

I would love to wear the world
as was before all this
but perhaps my prior idiocy
is why we remember