It’s been this way since the Domesday Book.

So convinced

no one would need ever take

an arrow in the eye again.

An arrow in the eye,

there are other ways to blind,

or to be blind.

There’s an exhibition of driftwood

washed up on the river.

Washed up on the river,

choked to shallows by uncut reeds.

They slashed the hospitals,

knocked on the doors

of the ill and workless

Ill and workless,

f...

The Bad Thing never lasted

As long as I thought it would.

It lodged in my subconscious

And Colonised my anticipation.

But in real time I realised

the Bad Thing could not last forever

and has no more stamina

than better things, everydays.

It’s only fuel

was the power I offered it....

Blood moon

Covered by the sun

Red Shadow

Hovers like desert dust

Superstitious times

Bring strong voices

In the kingdom of the unrehearsed

We are all off guard

and frightened

Watching the skies

With pre- science eyes

Hungry for answers

For sacrifice

To know

It’s not our fault...

It’s Firework Day, the town is eager

Each year hoping Klauss will ignite

the Volcano Fountain.

And once again, astonishing sparks and trails

will fly across the square,

and we will reach upwards, towards the fire lanterns.

No-one will mourn, the grief that engulfed us

will dissolve

And Klauss will climb down from the church tower

As the bells in his head ring out once more...

The fingers of suspicion finished pointing

before the hands had started to applaud

the knuckles bared like teeth that needed filling

the nails hardly blunter than his sword

Her trust had not survived the last confession

It left a taste that clung to every word

And nothing he could do would stop the burning

Though it was undersaid and overheard.

The trouble with suspicion is it lingers

Hangs a...

When my Grandad had died

I said that we were coping

By crying alone,

sitting in separate rooms.

Facing each other after.

When your Grandad had died

It was one of the rare times

when you were real to me,

showing me your true feelings

Sadly unshared in family...

I was 60

I wanted to do something new

To get a significant gift

And it looks terrific

Something to sit in front of in the evening

Quiet steady practices

As if

Where would that time come from?

Borrowed from unlearnt languages

Fetched from must-read shelves

Bought from quick contracts

But I’ve got a set of three finger chords

And some heavy reverb bass

I never thought it’d be Chopin

I can lose...

Doubt (dowt) mythical English creature, half purposeful, half anxious.

Doubtful, doubts were said to have huge appetites, but little interest in pronouns or prepositions, believing them to be constructs of their human suppressors

In fairness, they also knew that humans who tried to suppress doubts very rarely succeeded.

Doubtless, describing a situation where a either no doubts remained, or po...

1st Alex

2nd Douglas

You’ve written a book?

Yes, it’s a quirky metaphorical self- improvement pamphlet

About bank robbers?

It’s not illegal if it’s a metaphor

Are you sure?

Technically simile could land you with community service, but metaphor is ok

Maybe you’d be sent somewhere that felt like prison..

but wasn’t

Exactly, so what’s the central idea?

Approach your life as if you were ro...

2024

Blue walls are crumbling

How quickly the conjurors are melting away

2025

Budget papers leaked insiders

Not wholly true but close enough

2026

Half term Oranges

And other even more

cumbersome metaphors

2027

Blue walls are still dissolving

with toxic microplasticity

2028

Five years pass, sheep are grazing

in what seem mostly greener fields...