Breathing cold vibrancy,
the earth and sun remind us
that whatever prattles on the surface
will be layered over,
fossilised,
and judged as advances
or fat, white dead ends
by the clever folk ahead

Peach lingers as sunlight falls
  and behind, has even painted
      grey clouds happier
        and I try to inhale seven,
                                exhale eleven,
      but the frantic black-wire
                        gut-froth won’t tire
                     today

A brilliant cold
pinching cheeks
like zealous relatives.

As long as you have warmth
to return to
it delivers similar bliss.

The twang of anxiety
and rattle of adrenaline
is hard to dispel
sat facing a laptop
at a kitchen table,
making all video calls
seem like I’m an addict
jonesing for my next fix.
I got the Teams twitch.

Justified and ancient thoughts,
deeper than the current media,
as daft and important as thumbing a nose
at those who claim to know better

Much can be drawn in asking
“What time is love?”
or even doctoring the TARDIS.

Makes as much sense
as licking the wind in a pandemic,
I guess

It’s one of those days where we’re polite
but we want to gather handfuls of ****
and **** it at the faces
of those who’ve known no sadness,
other than the dappy misery they’ve caused
to those, potential relations,
they told they loved.

I try to deny a bitterness
when I check every lock each night
including on my bins,
that each of us is the same
from birth
but the score of this whole game
starts on different tees.

See, we know.

Cast forward to those first days
where half clad trees
coax memories of freshness

though you’ve stepped out
wrapped still in winter blues,
insistent sun and boisterous green
beguile you to disrobe
and give skin to this

welcome discomfort
at being over-encumbered
as the new season embraces,
the shedding can begin