How many stars are in the sky
I tip the telescope and behind one there are thousands more
They're all bright
Some are closer and some are further away
They're all a mystery to me
As I reach out
Look deep into them
another pulls my gaze
and another

What's the smallest living being on earth?
a graduate of music school
First class degree won with some leeway
but that can't pay for my MOT, no way
four hundred and thirty seven quid and 26p to pay
for new suspension ball joints and wishbone, wiper blades and an emission test pass grade
and now my car has scraped a "pass with defects"
I hope someone made a wish as the old bone cracked
as they took it to the tip with the entire contents of my bank account
I wish I was back home again, scared to answer the phone again
but now every phone call I'm praying for a gig.  

For nine grand a year I wonder how well she would do in the next few tests
if she'd have a long career ahead after a short rest or if she would still be run into the ground,
one day kicking the bucket at 90 miles an hour on the M4 back to Cardiff; I recently found
she won't quite make it to one hundred.
One hundred miles an hour!
Such power, so close, but no cigars for me any more - I can't even afford to smoke rollies.
When I'm seventy I'll start again
whether I want to or not, I need that one lifetime guarantee.
If I make it to seventy.
Hopefully boredom, rejection and ******* aren't causes of early mortality.

What happened to the love stories
the strings and the piano play
the fish hook in my chest
pulls no more than a tear
I miss something I never had
thank the big screen
for the life in your head that can't exist
what I've seen
is never to be had, always missed.

My sickness is my gravity
too heavy to go up to bed
immobile, face dead
and still the strings
and the piano
play

How did I end up here?
In the sun and drinking beer
in a world of boats,
smiling in the photos taken by the host,
thinking soft as I gaze across the water
and hear people sing.

The dogs all drink from the bowl.

My goal is not to spend all my cash on drinks
but at home there's more cash and more drinks
and I'll wonder how I ended up there.
I had tasty food and squinted in the water's glare
across at the pretty girl
sitting on the other side of our drinks,
between a glass of pinot grigio and the sun
between me and the sea.
I think she likes me.
I'm sure I feel something
but I'm having too much of a nice time to care.
Stare into my eyes.
Find what you seek and do so soon.
A lot could change in the coming weeks.

Weather closes in
Flags and bunting writhe in the wind
as the water squirms below
I start to get cold
I've lost track of pints
but don't feel drunk
I think you're hot and funny and cool
but don't want to bunk up,
I just want to go home and write words on a page,
sit there alone and chase the silly pathways
down which my mind stumbles.

It took a long time to get home tonight
Both of us walking more slowly than normal
in the soft night air under yellow streetlights
Laughing and joking, a couple of times I reached around your slight body
to awkwardly hold your shoulder or your waist
and kept glancing away,
too nervous to look long at your face
Which is beautiful, by the way,

Although I found your eye shadow too much
and your hair too little
and I sometimes wished you'd hush
so I could hear the people be people.
We had a lovely time, eating
cheese and I drank beer and you drank wine
in the sun by the sea,
In a place where I can blissfully, peacefully, quietly be me.

That was the best banana of my life.
The skin was thin and brown and weak.
It peeled away, bark off a copper birch.
The flesh was white, light and fluffy
Cotton wool and candyfloss
sweet like candyfloss but I'm glad it was a banana because I don't like too much sugar in the morning

You are infinitely colourful,
Touching the ground in two places.
Sometimes more,
Sometimes less.
I welled up when I saw you
and climbed a mountain
- I couldn't see you through the grey
but I was closer
You were with me
My brothers, the sheep,
Who knows how your colour,
Your beauty,
Touched their hearts,
if it lingers as it does in mine.
Rain and hail may erode, in time,
the rainbow at the back of my mind,
but they didn't on that day and they haven't since.

Yesterday the snow!
On the ground crunching like a good apple
Pasted on the trees like moss,
Painted upon each limb, some Bob Ross
Magic, white hill, white trees,
Pure sun, makes even the breeze glow!
Trees drop snow like the leaves
of last season, little by little,
and it falls to gently settle
in the back of my mind with you.

Warmth and colour,
the miracle of my summer,
Rest and play in the back of my mind
With the perfect winter's day,
Never to melt or fade into grey.

Today I walk home alone.
This is unusual.
I look at those who pass the other way.
I hear snippets of what they say.

Three girls -
"'Cos am a student, yeah, it's like, at the front of my mind, it's always, like, money"
- on a night out.

Front of your mind? It's BACK.

I wonder what's in mine.
I've been talking to God a lot.
He gives me answers.
I've
       forgotten a lot
of the French I learned at school.
I'd try harder if I had those classes again
     now.
Would you?

Your French might be perfect.

Adieu.

Thank you for the big hug,
it made me cry and smile.
I'm twenty one - I've been invincible for a while
and it's a shock to stop.

It's sad to say but
the sight of your face
reminds me of all the time I have lost.
Faces older than they were.

Shadows of houses grow -
black teeth closing across the road.
Long yellow fingers claw between.
Golden, all the lines I have crossed
without thinking twice.
My general, I conscientiously object.

What am I to you?

A friend
A mystery
A gargoyle
History

What are you to me?

A blackbird passing
An indulgent feast
after fasting.
A morsel at least
of something new,
Something good.
Of the many you're the few.
What's for pudding?

I am breathless
A tree in the city

I am tired
A desert stream runs dry

I am young
A baby bird can't yet fly

Your voice
so small, sweet
but low, gentle.
Generous hands
petite feet
I'd be mental
to refuse that dance

Get out of my head.
You weren't invited
Too many are already
on their way, unrequited.

Love has been cruel to
me too, I promise
and to all who ever
suffered my kiss.

I'm sorry, I'm honest
Love is best that way
Ugly, fearful and true
Get out of my head
or I'll be honest to you.

People are flies today.
They swarm and buzz
and get in my mouth and nose.
They're like cigarettes
or biscuits -
Hard to quit -
inessential -
I have to try it.

People are everywhere.
Get out of my hair.
I retreat to my private lair,
not a care in the world
but loneliness.

People are like a cheese board.
They make me dream,
something else about biscuits
and go well with a few glasses of red wine.

So many cheeses to choose from
and not one of them is mine.

Being happy isn't having enough money to go out tonight
it isn't slurring your words
or being surrounded by birds
in a bar or on a hillside.
Being happy isn't having your political party in power
or having *** in the shower
or drinking your favourite tea
or getting down on one knee and hearing a shriek of joy.
it's understanding the word "no"
and carrying your grandma's wishes with you wherever you go.
Being happy isn't a fluffy, roasted sweet potato
or a sesame bagel with smashed avocado
it's stooping down low
and saying hello to what grows
at the bottom of the social food chain
and talking and taking away a bit of someone else's pain
it's swapping smiles with a new stranger every day
walking miles through danger not to have your say
but to hear someone else's.
Being happy is always giving a couple of quid to the homeless,
whether you have it or not.
it's keeping smiling when there's a twist in your plot
Being happy, it's, it's cleaning your flatmate's dishes as well as your own
it's having a clear state of mind - where you feel at home.

Your legs will not carry you quickly enough.
Your voice will not shout loudly nor whisper quietly enough.
Your heart will not stop beating and let you be still
until it stops beating and you are still.

You will whisper quietly in a voice that booms and echoes:

"Enough."

What a pity
What shame
Sand and grit
are in my teeth.

I need to know
what's in your head
I can't trust
Do you have a toothbrush?

I have one
It works well
when I use it,
and I feel good.

But my teeth get *****
more than twice a day.
Yours could too.
I would know
if ever you flashed me a smile.

We're all subjects of love
Subjects of fear and longing
living day by day
because -
Smiling at the right people,
vibing the wrong.
Everyone sings their own song
of their own love.

Fear and longing hide
in the inner parts.
I never wanted an ignorant melody
thickly articulated through a cloud of smoke,
tickling a beer glass
confused and stenching
because-
We all learned some manners as children
and knew they were true,
waving our banners of politeness,
mine red, yours blue.
Purple would be a royal colour
if we combined the two.

You're wrong.
I might be right
because-
all heads are "me" when they hit the pillow at night.

If you were a blade of grass,
which blade would you be?
How long does a blade of grass last
before dreaming of being a daisy?

Grass is stationary,
it's still and it's lazy.
He needs to stand up
if he wants to be a daisy.

Daisies are fickle
and die for half the year.
Grass is patient and constant and free.
I'm leaving for the fields
to find a blade for me.

I have nothing to write about,
and haven't for a while,
so let's sit and smile,
being together,
happy bodies nestling deep in the fake leather sofa.

True peace is white noise.
Even the right noise,
the perfect music,
drips from my ears and chips my shoulders.

Nothing to say,
something to hear.
Let's be here
until the next day,
and have a snack.

I've been here before.
I've breathed this air.
Let it take
as long
as it is going to take
and breathe.

I've tasted it before,
this air,
cinnamon and grass
ale pulled from the cask
old plasters pulled off at last
and broken scabs,
and there is salt and there is sugar
in my tears.

A giant circle,
each head laid on the next shoulder.
We are together.

Scarf thieves beware.
Cold necks belong to snakes and lizards.
Snakes make snug scarves.
I always wanted a really long scarf
I had one
and it's gone now.

My eyes never close
and I never stop tasting
or shedding my skin
I have many many scales,
none of them in equal temperament,
all of them intricately camouflaged
speckled and striped
coiled and waiting to strike at anything that comes within reach.

Lucky you've got a scarf to protect your neck.

There's something between my mirror and me.
Something on my lip (maybe)
A signal in my eyes that I can't see.
What could it be?

It could be you,
or that which is becoming more true,
every morning when my mirror looks at me.
I wish it would say what I want it to.

There is no point me being here
or anywhere
I'm a ticking time blank.
No explosives,
only whining, only moaning.
Ticking,
tocking,
mocking myself.
I am no good poet,
and no musician whatsoever.
I draw for fun
and sometimes read.
Hear the music in the street -
car engines and pelican crossings can't hear me,
They have no need for me.
Nothing does.
There's more where I came from.

What are you meant to do today
Sit quietly and enjoy the view, to pay
your dues and wait patiently for improvement
while so many ants scuttle on by,
Talking and biting and lighting cigarettes
and I lie in my bed and I fret
about all the things that don't matter
like why are we here?

Who are you meant to be, and
what's the purpose behind your story?
Weak poetry makes the world go round.
That and people not getting enough sleep.
I can't remember who I was or who I am going to be.
I'm the one that won't make it
because I'm the one without a dream,
like my father before me,
no passion, no cool,
no fashion, just school and work and pension funds
stepping up each rung of the ladder
but you fall off and dunno what to do
because now the whole ******* ladder's fallen on top of you.
Weak poetry makes the world go round
and lonely singers in lonely bars
with their hands on their hearts and their eyes on the stars
because it's a star that makes the earth go round.
Magnets and the sun or something like that
Dinosaurs and satellites and bureaucrats
and peace and war and what's for dinner tonight and all of that
and none of that matters.

I don't know where I'm going with this
I'm waiting and writing until I can get ******,
when I run out of antibiotics
and have successfully quit the deathsticks
85 per cent of throat cancer is caused by smoking
but so was 85 per cent of my good moods
so now I have to choose if I'd rather be happy and die
or live long and sigh and cry after every meal.
Eat and breathe and believe
that weak poetry makes the world go round
because I'm full of it.
I'm full of **** but at least I'm full of something.

Sinking sand,
cool my toes
my ankles, my calves.
tickle my knees, soft and gentle
and caress my inside thighs
Excite me with your wandering touch
****** me much,
acquaint yourself with every angle and crook of my limp body
devour me from leg to waist to fill my belly button and massage my stomach
I have gorged myself enough and now it is your turn
digest me as I digest my last meal,
feel every vertebrae of my lonely spine
know each mole on my torso,
each nasty spot and scar
and rid me of them as you rid them of me
lick my chest and tease my neck
leaving no mark
let each grain of your being make me more supple
learn me and let me lean into you,
my clammy body relaxes upon you, fresh and ready to go
I lower myself down,
I lounge in your eternal sheets and enjoy your breath moulding my neck,
the base of my skull,
my unshaven chin falls down,
mouth open
your kiss becomes my kiss becomes one final lingering kiss,
tongue tastes sand for the last time,
remembers all the food
all the sand it has enjoyed
I will become sand, my energy ready to become something else's
worms and snails and plants are hungry for me
though I have no hunger for myself
and as this thought dwindles so do I
my nose is gone, my eyes close, my ears fill with silence and overflow with silence and darkness and silence become blissful everything
only my beautiful blonde hair remains and suddenly that too is taken by the earth,
cool and wet and hungry
sinking sand
cool me
down

Evening nears
Another dreary day
Hauls me over its shoulder
I continue to draw breath.

I sit here
in the knowledge
that what I want
will ruin me.

A little canary
lands on my shoulder
and chirps its song:
"My friend, my friend,
wait and wait.
It's not too late to smile again,
Tomorrow has its own tomorrow,
your legs will gain strength
and your heart will follow"

It's not the best sunset I've ever seen,
nor the most pristeen,
but it holds secrets.
It makes me feel something
blue, orange, lilac and grey
Leafless trees stand silhouetted
Pretty, prickly nervous systems
I'm nervous too
I hope God isn't petty
Hidden in the lilac clouds

A flaming horizon
caked with lilac clouds
I ask it questions
but its silence lasts the night

Winter begins to wrap her cool limbs around mine.
Age-old enchantress
Stark and pure
Dressed all in blue, silver and white,
She opens the door on summer and slowly her presence fills the place.

The trees hold clawing fingers outstretched.
Summer is slipping away.
It's time to spread your emerald shawl on the ground;
Lay a brown, orange and red carpet for our honoured guest.

Age-old enchantress
Stark and pure
She has opened the door on summer and slowly her presence is filling the place.

Your teeth are real
They're ugly like mine

Your smile isn't ugly like mine
It's not real either

I've got some cheese and onion crisps
Half a packet of strawberry bonbons
And a kitkat that might have got wet on Crinkle Crags

I can't remember
the last time I saw my grandma
Or recall ever towering above her delicate, motherly body telling her I love her.

"It wouldn't have been the same without you"
"No, it wouldn't"
"In many ways"

I wonder what my dad meant by that
He likes to talk
And say nothing at all.

Man on the train furiously widens his eyes
At the piles of suitcases spewing from the rack
And curls his lips

Keith pouts like donald trump
So do I
Maybe it's genetic

I've got my grandma's genes too
She doesn't mind if I pout like donald trump
But she never liked bruce forsyth (who died last week)

Or maybe
The week before
"I've been watching strictly"

My older brother
Pulls out of the suffocating tar pit
Something nonflammable

I wonder what he meant by it
He likes to talk
He likes to say what matters

But what matters to him
And what matters to me
Isn't what matters to him

I've got a quarter of a packet of strawberry bon bons
And a kit kat that might have got wet on Cringle Crags

I carried a lady's suitcase
Over the bridge and
Back when the platform changed

She rewarded me
With information about herself
And I am grateful for that

She helped me
As simply and easily as I helped her
She gave me a smile to keep

What mattered to her,
Funny Welsh stranger,
Mattered to me
We swapped smiles
And walked off in brand new shoes.

Here again
The same old table
The same modern, open, space.
Natural light floods through the towering glass windows
And I think,
Why human?
Why couldn't I have been a rock or a tree or a waterfall?
Do trees fall out with one another
Are rocks concerned by the density of other rocks around them, or their plans or relationships or purpose
A rock is a rock
All a waterfall needs is gravity.
I'm human and I have just as much gravity as everyone else and I'm still unhappy
I'll have another cigarette.

A waterfall is water falling
All a human needs is
Something
about people or love or food or the motivation to cook food or the will to eat food even when sober.

Don't forget about money.
That's very important.
Without that, I couldn't buy tobacco.

Although on page two hundred and twenty
it must come to end,
for two hundred and nineteen and a half pages,
I found on this tree-pâté
(I don't know where ink comes from)
a friend.

Patrick for all his lonely sorrows
has taken me, sat me down in a blanket, and hidden me from the real world.
From touchable, grabbable joy
From the cold touch of a dead memory
From the contorted warmth of a lover about to take a journey.
From the satisfaction of a day job
From the numbing repetition of a day job
From anything tangible I hide,
and while away awhile.

Reading.

Page to page different circumstantial photographs,
beautifully, hauntingly captured, some of them,
all in his warm tongue and keen hand.

I wonder if I know these things he speaks of.
I am so close to them
I can see them
I'm in my blanket
My tongue in my mouth
My hands on his pages
My ears greedily lapping up his nutrition (too quickly to taste)
and my mouth is dry.

Not a callous touches my skin.
Not a memory picks up a pencil.
Not a lover contorts my limbs, my neck, ruffles my hair.
I can ruin my own hair.
I can stand up and see through my eyes as well as his
I might feel tangible
And I'll write a poem about it

Cardiff still sleeping
The light rain kissing the dark pavements
Delicately in the dim, secluded lamplight,
As lovers do,
Willingly oblivious to the odd lonely commuter,
Who frowns at the fresh, wet passion
From behind bleary eyes behind grey spectacles behind the wheel behind the grumbling, soggy rubber on the road.

Cardiff's lover must too
Make their commute,
The slow, grey flight is blown with such intent,
The wind is cupid and knows
Crops must be watered
Rivers filled
Valleys and hills alike await their romantic precipitation.
And the rain loves to please,
Turning yellows green and greens brown
And commuter's smiles upside down
(if they have smiled in the last ten years...

...sometimes I wonder if I have)

So, rain, peck my cheeks and run through my hair gentle fingers,
Speckle my glasses with moisture from your cool, close breath and whisper silence-quenching lyrics on my window with your pitter patter and I will dream and I will wake again to the early dawn rain and I will turn to you, open my mouth and taste your gentle kiss on my lips and tongue and I will smile.

I'm on the train again.
Stopped at Manchester Airport
I am presented with an excellent opportunity to check out a flight attendant standing by the doors.
Her uniform is block red.
Of mice and men, it's the boys
Who ogle, cats soon to be fed.
And I did always think there was something sinister about cats
Their sly eyes and how they yawn
How they pretend to sleep long past dawn but have been slinking and thinking and stinking and
Hunting
The blood of mice
and men reward their pet's **** with a stroke of their ego by their ego.
"It's human nature" to hunt for rich, red reward you say
"It's part of being a man"
I'll say human nature can,
No, should, change,
And I avert my gaze with shame.

I was on a train out of Chorley
Happy to be sad to be leaving
Smalltalking strangers with a great accent
Hot and uncomfortable because my super cool leather jacket wasn't breathing.

Lancashire, you've made me think!
Actually, trains make me feel pensive.
Or was it Mrs Barton?
Bumbling and hypersensitive (in a nice way)

"Remain vigilant through your journey"
"Do not leave your heart unattended or it may be destroyed"
We'll get into Cardiff at zero zero six teen
That's technically Friday; there'll be drunks to avoid.

We're past Crewe and I know
Younger me made the right decision.
The path I sometimes hesitate to follow
Is bold, beautiful and scenically inefficient.

It twists and turns, trees stream
Past the train's windows
The sky looks lovely tonight
A candyfloss cloud for each of my woes (only three or four obstruct the sunset and they make it shine all the softer)

Mother of a lover, you said
You thought you'd never see me again
You often think of me, and will "follow me".
Facebook makes it easy to pretend.

An elderly gentlemen sits in front of me on the train
In fine, red braces and a tweed hat the colour of marshland after rain.
He is concerned.
He left his coat at Derby station and is going to collect it.

A normal man of average age is more self-assured than this OAP.
A normal man with a boring job and nothing to see
Not even red braces

It's like when people get old,
Right before they're about to die,
They realise they don't know anything. They have nothing to be confident of.
They have lived fascinating, breath-taking, heart-stopping, totally forgettable lives.

We've reached Derby now and red looks back at me,
Mouth slightly open and with a long strand of loose hair poking from under his hat.
I smile.
I'm young. I'm only just beginning to know everything.

He is anxious and I am stupid and ignorant.
I hope he finds his coat.

Uninvited visitor
Black-eyed burglar
Shadow dweller
Nimble sprinter
Able contortionist.

Cheap, common yet
Generous
disease giver
Innocent troublemaker
Thief and scrounger
Bin searcher
Test subject.

Extreme sport enthusiast of my kitchen, bedroom and balcony
Sleep depriver
Olympic diver
Racecar driver with claws for wheels.
I'm not your pit crew, so please find your meals elsewhere,
Silent sniffler.
Constant nibbler
Unwelcome visitor
Gatecrasher!
And he brought a plus one, cheeky sod.
Wherever he goes,
He's pursued always by that faithful worm.

I'm a pendulum
Slowly swinging one way and another.
Always destined to be opposite,
Always almost touching one extreme or the another.
I long for the dull thud of metal on wood.
I remember as a child playing with the brass pendulum of my parents' clock. Interfering.

I'm a cuckoo cuckoo.
In my cuckoo clock.
Popping in and out.
Hidden inside or on full, crude display,
Chirping away,
But never will I not be the other,
In time.

I am the weather,
My own seasons,
A planet orbiting its sun,
Ever-changing, always running,
Spinning, dizzying, ever busying Myself but never getting to the sun.
Never knowing true dark or true light,
Only the insistent tick tock of day and night.
Regimented, regular dawns and dusks.
Waiting for the next change of scene
Wondering what it would mean to reach the sun,
Wanting to let the cuckoo break loose of its small, wooden case.

No one likes my poems
Maybe you will like this
Because it's about Rubicon
Juicy, loosy goosey Rubicon baby
Oh yeah, uh, uh, rubicon

too many fingers in too many pies
so far apart my body is torn trying to reach them all
and now I am dead

I'll hide away in myself for a while,
and as I try to smile at the good folk
who surround me,
I'll see the concern in their eyes
or the awkward sympathy in the way they don't meet my gaze at all.
Your eyes say it all.
Hello, goodbye, thank you and please,
Excitement, weakness, pleasure and greed
all in the concentric circles between your eyelids.
Globes.
Green, blue, brown, grey
A whole other world at the top of your face.
I could travel the earth in one hour with you.
But I may have to stop hiding away
And dip into my savings account.
There are expenses to pay
If I am to holiday with you.

A mouse is small
and a mouse is brown
but when one appears
big people scream loudly.
I wonder if the small, brown mouse
knows why there's so much noise.
Poor mouse is getting bullied!
Chased by giants!
Giants are slow, though.
Big and loud and slow, you know,
and too preoccupied with other things
to catch every quick little mouse.
I think the mouse will win this one.
But I heard they don't like chilli powder.

I don't want to be a coward.
I want to be strong
but it's hard when I don't know what to say
(everything I can think of feels wrong
and I struggle to picture in my mind a real conversation with you,
because I'm scared.)

I blow air into the balloon in my chest
and look across at you
but as my eyes smile and try their best to be honest
I deflate and it seems I can't get through
the thick, grey doubt
clouding my judgement.

I want to tell you that I care
about you and your smile and the way
it paints a crease on your chin
but sometimes I struggle to say anything
that could even so much as doodle an expression
on those familiar features.

Perhaps you are having thoughts quite similar
when you lie down to sleep.
And when you wake early
to go for a run - while your feet
put distance between us - I wonder
if your thoughts pull me closer.
I don't know.

Honestly, these dramatic words don't feel right to me.
They don't suit you
like I want to suit you.
They don't match the pure, honest truth, which is that
I think you're unique.
You're talented and beautiful and you bring me joy.
You're cute and quiet and strong and bold
and I hope that very soon I'll be able to speak some of this to you properly.
You probably know half of it already, and
it makes me twice the coward, that I haven't been able to speak directly to you what has already been said  in every vague hint and stare and hug and simpering compliment that I've passed your way.
I really want to be strong.

Are you happy?
Your second-hand smile wears thin like old jeans,
and once-glinting eyes drop to the floor to stare dully at my cigarette ****.
My trainers are filthy and yours are clean, protecting soft feet from the cold that we both feel inside us.
It's the start of November but it's been winter for a while.

How long have you been silent? How long will you be silent?

How do you buy new jeans when all your currency has been spent?

Maybe I could be your personal shopper... I'm really not qualified; I was fired from my last position but I think I'd enjoy working here!

I'm sorry this doesn't make sense.
Some of it is missing and some of it almost definitely isn't me.
That's the trouble with painting your face. You do it every day and you forget how you used to look under all those layers, each mask set upon the last.
But I suppose the Mona Lisa took a few attempts, and so can we.

So alone in a room, with my back against a mirror, I put pencil to paper and start to scratch my itch.

I forgot to look at the sky,
bright, cold blue with shreds of white hanging
above and beyond the grey city
whose tall, misty pillars of different shapes and sizes stand
full of people who are full of frowns.
Who,
like me,
probably forget to look at the sky.

In the foreground, ***** trees sprawl low and wide and leafless in the winter chill.
Dark roots curled under the wet grass of the hill which holds me and you

I feel lost and perhaps a little homesick.
This isn't my city.
The buildings aren't mine and the trees aren't mine
but a little part of the sky is mine
as I breathe it in
and out
and it refreshes my skin.

I don't realise what I have

I could lie in bed
through the whole, long morning
but as the gentle, Welsh sun peeks through the crack between my curtains,
I stretch my legs

I have a basil plant
with some lovely, emerald leaves
crowning 3 strong, thick columns
in an off-white, ceramic ***.

Decorated with delicate foliage, hand-painted
in rust and green,
how it glows in the sunshine
on the tiled kitchen window sill.

I'm like a bird, I want to fly away.
Wrapped in a billowing yellow silk scarf
which shines gold in the light of day.

Perched on a tree branch, face the horizon.
Hope and sunlight glimmer reflected in
each determined eye which widens.  

Ruffled feathers are my warm, windswept hair.
I will leap into the sky, stretching high
To glide through the air if I dare.
  
Music from Cape Town, a bird's song my ears
spread their wings and feel the song's lift beneath
and sing sweet as the horizon nears.

I am a  bird and as I fly away
wrapped in my billowing yellow silk scarf
I shine gold in the light of day.

There's no blind on the skylight in my bathroom.
When I brush my teeth,
do birds see me?
What do they think?
They have no teeth.
They have no idea what's going on.