I chewed on a pencil for tea
an unpleasant splinter of graphite 2B,
my head machine purrs, but cogs do not whir
nothing stirs,  
no word flowers grow,
I need some more seeds,
are they herbs are they verbs or irritating weeds  
I don't know,
how this could be so,
I will make me a garden for rhymes to bloom,
poems only flower if you give them some room

I'm a furry little dancer
a sleek bewhiskered chancer,
I wanted to pounce you
bounce you
trounce you with my paw
shiny sunbeam on the floor,
you were here just now,
and then you were gone,
such shame our game can't carry on

Weighed down by rocks that were your words
I took me to the river, and tossed those pebbles far and wide,
then I found me a bridge that was burning
and danced to the other side,

Bobbing
that is what we know,
not controlling the flow
the river turns and off we go
floating or still,
following every curl and rill
every drip,
every rippling shaded shallow
every stately wallowed williow, calm and still
every bump and gravelled hollow
each of us is bound, to follow in its wake
each reflected new direction that we take
is not a vast and empty ocean
or the gentle forward motion of some shimming mirrored lake
it’s a gentle stream of bubbles,
that we have caused to be
bobbing ever on onwards, always looking for the sea

I can feel it,
smell it fragrant on the breeze
watch it in the leaves of broadleaf trees that bend to give me shade
taste it sweet upon my waiting lips
a kiss that comes to me
through every flower and bird and labouring bee,
not in gentle honeyed sips but fresh as new picked mint
every morning clear as day, bright as resting dew at dawn
I hear it whispered through the grass
summer is reborn

There are times when life’s knitting unravels
a major diversion in the direction of travel,
not a dropped stitch, or some existential glitch,
but a ****** awful tangle
a wrestle, a fist fight,
a complicated wrangle
a long overdue appointment with fate,
when we can do nothing but sit back and wait
let it run, see it through
think about anything that we can do
to find the loose ends
pick up the pieces
and start to make amends

Birds in flight,
black and white
synchronised motion,
sweeping wings
skim the ocean