the rains of summer

the grass grows long
beneath the
rains of summer

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Notes:

1. Written on July 30th, 2021

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Two Short Poems About The Park

Sitting In The Park

I hadn’t sat in the park for so long
I’d forgotten what sitting in the park was like
(It was like sitting in the park)

*****

What I Saw While Sitting In The Park

There was a funfair in the park
It was empty of life
and entirely silent
And had been
(I presume)
for quite some time

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Notes:

1. Written on 26th May, 2021
2. In the park

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Some poems from years ago that I barely remember

I just found an old notebook with some poems in from years ago that I barely remember so here are some poems from years ago that I barely remember

*****

I would quite like to be eaten once dead
My body left by the side of the road
For the crows and the gulls
To pick clean my bones

(2010)

*****

She sliced apart her lips
and I sliced open mine.
And there upon the marsh
with a bloody kiss
we were married in our way

(6/6/15)

*****

Cutting The Cord

He handed me the knife
and said to me
You’re the mother
it should be you

So I took it from him
and cut the cord
and let her float out
away across the sea

(11/11/15)

*****

The children
in the playground
attack in packs
and devour the lonely

(28/5/15)

*****

By The Station In Norwich

Steel pole fence
strobing sunlight
and a tattered bag
caught on the barbs
dead between the storms

(29/12/15)

*****

New Year’s Morning, 2am

Are you weeing on my car?
Are you weeing on my car?
He is, you know
He’s pissing on my car

And then

footsteps
quickening
receding
the slamming of doors
the revving of engines

A slow returning silence

(1/1/16)

*****

I am scared
of the written word
and the unwritten
and the unsaid

(undated)

*****

And then another hundred empty pages all the way to the end of the book, which I would like to believe were an intentional part of the poem, but which obviously weren’t.

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Notes:

1. Written between 2010 and 2016
2. It’s possible the eaten once dead one has been on here before somewhere
3. But the others are all new
4. For whatever definition of new I’m using to describe six year old poems

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A castle covered not in thorns

a castle covered not in thorns
but those pointless lights on the patio
their rusted wires
as cursed as our hearts

_________

Notes:

1. Written on May 12th, 2021

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Tales From The Town #1: The Poetry Competition

They were going to have a poetry competition, Claire had decided. She had things to say.

“Can I paint a picture instead?” Ethel said, picking up a particularly appealing piece of paper from the pile. “I don’t like writing at all.”

She didn’t care for people correcting her spelling, which they did all the time. It was so rude.

“No!” Claire said. “It’s a poetry competition. And besides, we’ve only got pencils.”

She brandished them like knives.

“But a painting’s a kind of poem,” Ethel said.

“It is not,” Claire insisted. “Who told you that?”

“Anna,” Ethel said. “And she’s a student!”

“Well, she’s wrong,” Claire told her sister. “If you paint a picture you’re disqualified.”

“Can I write a story?” Daniel asked.

“Only if it rhymes,” Claire said. “But it still isn’t going to win.” She took her hairbrush out of her pocket and held it like a club. “My poem’s going to win.”

“Poems can’t win,” Tina said. “They don’t work like that.”

“Everything works like that,” Claire said.

“It does not.”

“It does,” Claire declared. She began brushing her hair with such intensity it glowed. “Anyway, I bet you don’t even know HOW to write a poem!”

“Of course I know how to write a poem,” Tina said. Upstairs, in the box beneath her bed, were 973 neatly filed poems, at least one of which was over a hundred pages long and written in the alliterative style. Even Tina knew that this was a bit much. “I’ve written loads!”

“Well, I’ve never seen any of them.” She looked at Ethel and Daniel. “Has anyone?”

“No,” Ethel said.

“Yes,” Daniel said.

“No you haven’t, Daniel! No one has.”

Tina never showed her poems to anyone, especially not Daniel. Not because she was embarrassed, or that they were private. She simply didn’t like to see anybody cry.

Especially not Daniel.

“Anyway, I’m not playing,” Tina said. “It’s wrong!”

“You’re only saying that because you’re going to lose,” Claire said with a wild stare. “You and your stupid poem.”

“Poems can’t lose, either,” Tina said, shaking her head and slowly fading away. “It’s not what they’re for.”

Claire stamped her feet, and then turned round to glare at the others.

“You better not be giving up!”

“But the room was empty. It was so empty it gave the impression that it had always been empty. Even Lucas seemed to have left his usual spot down the hall.

“I win, then,” Claire said sullenly. She sat down on the chair between the bookcases and looked out of the window. “I always win.”

Outside, she could see Daniel and Ethel playing on the swing. Claire threw the pencils on the floor and stamped on them, then picked them up and very tidily put them all away.

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Notes:

1. Written on April 28th and April 29th, 2021
2. Please see the cast of characters for more information about the protagonists

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