He sits quietly while she explains patiently
what it is that he really wants.
If only he'd listen, he'd not have the stress
of second guessing himself.

In his quiet, in the soft breeze
of her advice, he runs
through perfectly good past menu options
and again considers how their taste
had readily agreed with him.

He resolves and waits for her
to finish her salad,
and before dessert he explains
he needs to leave and walk the dog.

And once safe home,
old Pippa loves him for who he is
and he gratefully takes the lead,
while blocking one more number on his Nokia
and pocketing a mini mars bar for later.

She could have sworn Charlie Chaplin was French.

She had thought so since childhood -
there was something about his movies being sub-titled,
his ****** hair and (she lowered her voice with some shame)
his trouser.

She had loved his films since watching them with her dad
and he never had mentioned the silent star's heritage.
I mean, why would he?

She looked again.  And again there was something
'continental' in his eye liner, in his gait
and in the way he gracefully pivoted
that still fitted her misconception.

But now that she thought more about it,
it made perfect sense,
of course he was not French.
He must have been German.

"I'll leave you all the weapons for that",
Pat smiled and perched the two too-tall cinnamon buns
down beside me on the windowsill,
as promised fully armed with knife, fork and serviette

I entered the fray and caught the eye of the postman
as he fought with his cart along the too narrow,
not-quite-cobbled path, slick with rain,
and then he nodded and gave way
to the guy in the slow sports wheelchair

while the young mum on low reserves
wrestled with her twin girls
up past the town hall and gallery,
perhaps with the promise of grandma's cookies

- all this while Jill's coffee brewed patiently alongside the buns
as she and Deb re-ran long laughter of past adventures
and plotted paths to future endevours.

Welcome to the pharmacy, for poetry.

The angel's nose is in the dirt.
His sacrifice apparently saving us to our grief.
He lies there broken for us, prayerfully still,
there for the sake of the children,
for the sake of decorum,
protecting us from the accidental,
from the potential risk of an angelic fall
crushing the griever as they stoop
to place their flowers.

My sister chose the flower arrangement
from the top table of her daughter's wedding
where the fallen should have been
and perhaps could have stood
giving a heart-felt and gently humorous speech,
offered a toast to beauty and happiness,
but instead lies emotionless

in the dirt.

You didn’t realise just how easy
it was to slip
how you can lose track
lose count and how quickly
a habit can become addictive

Once you get the taste for the hit
you find yourself reaching for it
and before you know it, you’ve slipped
into a dependency - fortunately
this time you’re only a *****
for Lemsip

I read my favourite graphic novel and I see
I need more breath between the panels
The images come too quickly
They combine with the dialogue to overwhelm me
and my ability to process, to ingest
the action and our conversation

Can you afford me more breathing space,
more margin in my morning kitchen shuffle,
can you allow me the time,
maybe as much as the day after the night before
to properly process without the stress
of having to readily express a miserable conjecture
of what I’m feeling, what I'm missing

Then I can signpost where I'm heading
I can pause and recap, provide an opening to map
where my story is going
and then perhaps I can take us with me.

Quote from Paddington in Paddington the Movie

“Mrs. Brown say in London everyone is different, but that means anyone can fit in.  I think she must be right because, although I don’t look like anyone else, I really do feel at home.  I will never be like other people, but that’s alright, because I’m a bear.  A bear called Paddington.”