This painting

I would not buy this painting,
this painting I would not buy.
The sky is pale, too washed to view,
those clouds have run amock,
unless they are some higher sheep,
but I think not.

I would not buy this painting,
buy it, you’re having a joke.
it has no scope, no beauty to be.
So poorly conceived a drawing,
Call that an untamed galloping horse?
It’s only two legs I see.

I would not buy this painting
with its abstract triangle trees, oh please,
and is that a fly stuck to the paint,
you say it was a simple mistake,
but, it’s not my vision of quaint.

I would not buy this painting,
this painting I would not buy.
If you think I’m parting with my cash
then you’re going to have to wait for ages.
It’s a travesty, a bad misconception,
tell me it’s in it’s early stages!

By torchlight

Every blade walked by,
a whisper caught in the fields.

Last night I thought
of trees framing a lost refuge,
leaves like circling hands, ensuring
all did not collapse away
to some imagined non-existence.

Grasses swam hush time around,
bent their fixed evening
my way, and then wild carpeted
in empathy once more.

Seemingly undirected
a night scene leaned in from above
and openly listened; each star
an acknowledging blink.

Past times in nature nodded black,
quite stopped me in my tracks
and I had to walk from here to there.

Every blade walked by,
a whisper caught from the fields.

Come fetch me

I hung my head,
anxiety guided
a downward motion,
glanced at this life map,
it seemed confused,
meaningless.

Many directions
to unknown hamlets,
all those unopened gates
to hazes upon hills,
they were paler thoughts.

One burned a beacon
through good times,
stubborn bad,
distant, empty-head faults
were acknowledged
in the pyre.

There I remained,
gathered sticks to flame,
heat healing the dark;
eager valleys spread in light
to pilot me home.

Love came, fetched me.

Kate Bush – Sunset

Murder in the night

What if it’s all there
to know, and I never saw it,
never clued-up to know
the twist of an ending.

It’s what keeps me returning
to this thriller, serial killers,
a man without a footnote,
yet flexibility enough
to bend, to pick up
some semi-lit, discarded
mystery brand of cigarette;
he knew it was crucial.

Or is it a woman
who’s central parked
on the city edge of suspicion,
lipstick a shade too red
for her innocent smile.
She smears over mirrors of doubt
with the words, “I told you so.”

With twists hand pocketed
they cross over in the street,
pass in parallel plots,
unconcerned
and reminisce about the villains
who have deep white scars
down their ripped, paperback spines;
soon they’ll have no wear left
and brief unread time
to turn around in the night.

5am

5am

Another day in this conscious tenderness,
all the leaves are swept up, so tidy.

The stems under the broom of us,
capable piles of reds and orange, the colours
of our love that still seems fresh green too.

In the air, the reverberation
of an event we spoke of last night, touching,
from the window all the day is dawning.

Exiles from the patch

After the midday meal
when I was feeling ezbored,
and tv confirmed
the day’s dud deal,
a huge turnip turned up,
knocked at the door.
Yeah, it’s true I tell you,
but what I thought was vegetable,
wasn’t quite of this planet,
more so stellar-organic.

T’was the size of a small car,
and smelt like onion gravy.
The surface was slightly cooked,
in fact it was f-mucked,
then, as I stared at the limp root
out popped an explorative shoot.

The shoot grew a leafy hand,
and fumbled blindly around,
had a high reach for veg I thought
and as it squeezed my left knee,
hmmm, I quickly moved away.

It opened a concealed door,
and that was strange indeed
as out jumped small cabbage aliens,
old depressed sprouts?!?
No doubts in my mind,
on Sundays you’ll find it seems
plenty of unwanted greens.

~

“It’s broccoli, dear”
“I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.”

Adventurer

He misfits,
wonders silently inside,
keenly down the ancient road,
pavement for the newfound adventurer.

Choosing his tread against the grain,
time to amuse on extinction,
the ordinary become extraordinary.

Side-ways glances over his shoulder,
as people glide, pass singulary by.
Each intent in their own inclination,
all a closely kept “Dear diary.”
An intimate tempered fresco
of their own vain vision.

He has his own distractions.

The souls of leathered feet still shake
off the dirt that judders birds, like disease
the traveller’s thoughts are oft in his head.
Steps echo off the curb, resonate
sparse distant rain in the dry streets,
marking the line into a socialite world.