Air with sinuous folds
flows fluid around me
thick with spring ebullience

each footstep more like
arm stroke
swimming languid
in spring itself

the expected hiss-splash
replaced by irrepressible birdsong
and a thrum of insect wings

Strange times indeed
when time itself has
adopted corporate technique
and seeks efficiencies

cutbacks in shaded
public daydreams
and an addendum added
so on the clock is replaced
by elongated shifts
in fluorescent lighted kitchens
or fuggy bedrooms

and yes, we will accept
the company line
it’s for the greater good

but your worst innovation
is to bring forward collection
of our family and friends’
souls and smiles
like you can shave some time
to make a smoother run
down the line

these things aren’t yours to take yet

Sundayish
with sun on us
remembered dishes
passed from smile hand
to hand

The love does not diminish,
immutable,
like all the good stuff

I’ll hold mine in reserve
for every one of you I miss

This morning
bird song
like black tar ******
incapacitates

dizzies senses
slight numbed
by minor isolation

all too brief
a moment of reverie holds

before returning to
web spun garage
and forgotten loft

to make busy

With fat-winged thrash and clatter
you endeavour to nest build
in the most precarious of places
cat prowled and mown by me
(if a little infrequently)

You’ll have my admiration,
protection
and whatever feed I can find
as I keep in mind
it’s you who show us the
old normal
amidst the new

I hold your eyes through glass,
conversation stripped
of sibilants and plosives
reduced to a vowel roll
like Charlie Brown’s ma’am

I wrestle with the thought
that this might be our last contact
without contact
although as adults we were hardly
what you’d call tactile
I’d take the chance to hug
and see your smile up close
right now

Settle we must for charades
and snatches of life
as I leave you
in the care of
wonderful strangers

An April fool
run to ground by a bug,
limited to roam a little upstairs,
a little down

I have consumed my body weight
in ones and zeroes,
which is no mean feat

I’ve streamed series,
beaten end of level bosses,
gone back and got mired
in the reeds
of the long reads

This feast,
long anticipated,
has not tasted as planned
and my multimedia catch up
leaves me wanting

When the time comes
I will cut and run
and plash my legs
in the sea to my knees

and I will not capture the moment
with an eye and thought
other than my own