we can hear  the scratching

when dark comes

comes the scuttlings

flutterings  outside


bats fly round our houses

don’t use a teapot

but evidently many do,

and cosy up together.

they don’t squish teabags, have leaves,

and stewing on the gas ring,

like mother, reducing it to

poison on my tongue.

i like the leaves to look at,

smell, like the small packet

we used to have, paper lined

in those days.

now i remember that you saw the night

properly

while here we wondered, got lost in our

head

looked up and found the morning had

come pink again

scattered light in particular places

the other in shade

my quiet friends felt shaky

weary while getting back to

somethings

there was thing

to write about

yet

i forgot

it

felt the cold inside me
lately

as i told you before

it came so yesterday
while my bones ached
to stay indoors

and did so
gently

things worked out pleasantly
while he watched the cricket

i spoke to the hub
and was conveyed

forward

planning can often work

the fire burned all day
from early

we miss you if you do not visit
a while
and we get all our tenses and lines
wrong and have to go back in a hurry
to amend

early yet

I have to tell you
that

i went a different way
to avoid the usual

found it was a parkland
with long hedges cut sideways

the back much longer
than the front

to create an anomaly

saw a white egret fly up and over
corrected the predicted from

regret

walked home and watched the news

as i rose,

a pink mist descended.

it was actually already there,



i like the sound of the action here.

you like birds?
as do i
neither of us employed
&  i am vaguely idle

blows ideas into our houses
messages bring connections.


a busy day with folk talking.

light the darker days

of gloom and melancholia

born from intrusion

and swede.

this is quality,

a fortunate piece.

now i beg forgiveness

we are little things

that dance in the mornings

james

in the light of the phone

imagine you a pirate, with stripey trousers
and a large black patch

on imagining things
sometimes scare myself silly

wash the cloth to prove a point.*

it is a fragile thing, hesitant in the making. never

complete, it hangs by a thread.

walked as usual

it was not deep here

and some still falling

heavily

i knew the others were in bed
and I wished them so

this was a new experience
brought on with isolation

walked to the main road only
usually much further

with practicality
sensibility

turned myself about
to head for home

it seems we always wish
to come back home

james

on another note
we had talked early
about our buying habits now

while she bought blades
i purchased a variety of
nuts

i took of photograph of hengrwt

such is the change of time
i have been around for  an
hour
extra

who knows what lies underneath
here the land goes up and down
water drains
into rivers

stood steady in wonder

watched the dark bleed

across the sky

watch birds scatter

they screamed that there was an accident waiting to happen on the stairs

little garden
with a pleasant lack
of human control

a small garden with a
backdrop of the estuary
and signal box
there

a special garden made
with nature and a loving hand

thankyou nature man

the days come darker still

considering the night


white they peer

sadly into empathy


faces cloud

shoulders bowed


not so the beginning

look at it

look at it


no stars here no separation

the two become one

again


you see that your perception of things

is different from the others


hold it

hold it and you will find after time

some no longer see


today there is vacant parking at the church

a thing so private, so intense .   . simple , complex. no one will see it .    

                      note your achievements to date.                     .hell no

such a surprise while working in isolation

on the theme of isolation

a note to say that there are notes

on work done previously

four of you had commented

said nice things and I had missed it

now read and apologised for my oversight

remarked that your remarks made me happy

and smiley

face

thankyou

he asked me who will be afraid of our ghosts

ghosts of humans
when we are gone

i replied the animals
then after i thought

it will be everything left
behind us

plants and earth
land and seascape

littered with the stuff
of us
the terrible ghosts

.is not so much that I like weird stuff…

is more that I don’t think stuff is weird…

black dog,
barks.
below the llan.

two cakes sound better than my none

here then it is not my birthday yet

i had bread and butter pudding for after
to use up the bread
disliking waste
and liking dessert

I would of said pudding
yet it spoiled the line

break

two eggs and add the milk
to soak the bread with butter

and sultanas

some things are unavailable so
asda man brings substitutes

like rocket instead of rocket
we are to have a refund if

found unsuitable

imagine the log deposited with flood
water

a whale beached
i said and she agreed

imagine if I had cake
and it might be chocolate
with thick sticky sauce
and bits in it

i imagine I should like that
and eat it all

:: snowdrops ::

hold her up, you need to hold her up

stand each side of her


it is a challenge each day

to look at the images

remember


a challenge to deal with these things

some of us manage


to be vulnerable as naked

in private


some need holding up

in sight from my window

fancy dance delivering groceries
down the lane by the church

where the water board left those holes

guarded nicely  with a temporary blue

fence thing

i did not order conversation yet got it anyhow
with a sermon regarding his christianity and

school assembly

i  vaguely argued points yet they were  not noticed

for he had sat  two hours that morning and every morning praying and reading stuff

maybe had not learned to listen

so brought the food delivery indoors
and asked a refund for the substitutes

medieval tartlet come scratchy

only once wore such a thing

rocky road of horror

least coverage and baggy below

without that leotard

come special

they walked home in the rain

got

missed on the pelican crossing

got ****** in the bar

there was lightning in the night


the phone told me

an alert on my app

comes yellow


it has been one year today

and that is plenty days and

there will be some more

of that I am sure


we listen to the rain early

with mixed feelings


there may not be gardening done today

there may be drawings

as i rose,

a pink mist descended.

it was actually already there,

i like the sound of the action here.

i thought the window misted,

my glassses steamed,

walked room to room,

and from the windows saw,

the softest steam morning

on the mountain,

through the trees.

the promise of another

day in wonderland.

yet the days moved nicely. there were little troubles, nothing to diminish the beauty of it all.

do you know the dark corner

behind damask

where music plays?


do you know why the tree died

why the paint smudged?


some know and remember the years

less for some than others


some paint tidy all realism while

others paint a different way


i know why the tree died . i do.

i know that the stove ticks when lit

lawns are a thing
i watched the history
been to a museum in southport

pretty place that for a town
with council gardening you know
all neat and patterns with orange
usually

is that a small
white house
at the side of

the road?

find.

no mention of gains or fortitude

some may look for the other one

some may find it

while the little people with their arms held high

dance in the sunlight with all that remains

carefully we drew her out
all tidy with reason, wearing
us down

do not feel so great, again today.

i wanted to be european.

a bigger picture.

do you hear it
rain at the window

do you hear the lightened notes
of hammers on skin

tunnels fade into waterways
paths are shallow pools

we laughed at the word

damp

the understatement

all wet clothes, mops
and buckets

later he said he would have
fetched me in the truck yet

there is no vehicular access

don’t get wet, don’t get wet
again

we laughed
and carried on with the day patiently

ridding ourselves of the valuables
of no value

things from the past

james

so you know the pattern?

if the name has lowercase things
will continue a while and if uppercase

it has ended

remember those comics with stories on space and rockets
all dan dare and boy’s own


that we all read despite the gender


do you think they used protonmail alongside ray guns
for protection


here  we went up the hill to the little shop
for dandy and beano

sometimes the beezer

it was bigger


then occasionally she bought me sunshine stories

the year the storm broke, breached

the shingle bank.

decisions were made

i hear

to not repair

it was in the wrong shed

it may be the right postcode

but up the wrong track, the

one i talked about yesterday

the ******* the bus had some, in blue though,

and i admired them while thinking that they will be fine for a more senior person.

then before the film that monday I visited the market, bought some much the same in red.

found some suitable socks and wore them to town

all comfy  and overwhelming in their newness.

yet I guess no one noticed, only me.

..talk, talk to me with snaked tongues,

all seaside towns and deck shoes, reminding

of the lecture house.

.they turned it nasty too.

..when the tongue splits, spit and go.

go fast.

is overcast today
a slight breeze from the
window
wide
a slight hint of colour
bleeding from the patch below

do you ever dream of a place
where you were so unhappy

that you have to go back
forcibly

do you ever wake up late
your neck hurting

like heck

do you console yourself that it
is winter

dark and to be expected
occasionally

do you still feel guilty
anyhow

some do

some are glad it was just a dream

here we need no black days
no more, not in this house

seen too many troubles….

some make mistakes
i do and avoid the capitals

main thing is to weather the storms
and visit daily
i too lean slightly