The kite arrives and the others scatter:
a chatter of malignant magpies,
muscle bound gulls,
fat, idiot pigeons
and scheming, knifing jackdaws

Even together, they can’t thwart
the obsidian eye,
the span and solid beat of russet wings,
the kingpin

That tattered *******
they all fight over
is his

#redkite #forthebirds #life #living #humanity

Dusk inside, sometimes

Sometimes out

A heart shout, above cloud thrill

Given infinite patience

Standing still, still, still

The slapping second hand wakes
to the mute, orange-dark room
of a life again crepuscular,

commutes before dawn, after dusk
and the yearn for vitamin D
become the norm

in the near distance
supermarket music tickles
glitter and tinsel

the bright idiocy of Yuletide
before the treacle dark inside

Eyes snap like Polaroid:
that memory is captured
flat
so superficially it holds truths

but look more carefully at those colours
and the tunes they sing,
they make you think
something

something close to fingertips
on glossed pages
where other people's lives live
and mean little

but this is yours, ours,
and I’m holding the hours
holding on and shaking

October butterflies
game against blue skies,
wind that gusts indifferent

fading buddleia’s
purple sashes
give one last hurrah
to the peacock, admiral,
as the lowering sun
sees through wings that were

#autumn #fall #october #butterflies #turnturnturn

I’m invincible, unstoppable

until I stub my toe
and come a cropper
and the earth below me shifts
and sits on my chest with a manic grin

The gasp for breath
like a feeble request for one more chance,
******* properly in a bunch
as all avenues close

These are the swings and roundabouts,
the reciprocal motions
that see rise and fall as one

decades in you’d think it’d all make sense
but this viscous, thick emotion
is as sticky as always

I think
I think in buds
that root
and sometimes
blossom with you

but don’t get cute about it