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Whitstable

Seagulls glide over

Sea. wind sweeps across shingle beach.

Goosebumps on sunny legs.

Sea crashing waves break.

Sounds of seaside water my ears.

Footsteps slip on stones.

Looking out to land

Across the sea. I spot the last

place my friend had stayed.

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Meeka.

A dog of sweet

Character. Sausages,

Tickles, tennis balls are all her

Desire.

Rescued

after given

up. They’d had a baby.

We got her from Battersea, a

Love bloomed.

Arctic

wastes are her true

land. A thick coat of fur

Moulting, tumble-weeding the floor.

Ah well.

Meeka.

The sweetest dog,

My heart hurts to think of

What went through her mind when she was

Left alone.

I know

That when you are

gone. I will miss all those

Annoying things you used to do.

Beloved.

I will

Build a shrine for

you, to a dog who lived

Up to her name, meek by name and

Nature.

This poem is written in cinquain form. 5 lines. 2,4,6,8,2 syllable pattern

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Treading stealthily

In and out of the shadows of the

Green Forest

Eyes flashing gold

Rousseau, Henri, knew the

Beauty of the tiger’s

Undulating form

Roaming, between trees

Now you see him, now you don’t.

Inspiring fear and admiration

Nothing is akin to its

Great striped majesty, it’s un-

Bridled power.

Repugnant trophy hunter

Inanely smiles in a Facebook photograph, a

Great beauteous tiger lying lifeless against

His pathetic pose when

Tigers are standing on the brink of extinction.

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The Yorkshire Horses

We, city interlopers stay

on a farm.

Mere yards away

from fields of horses.

My city rhythms slow

and accustomed

I grow

to watching the horses quietly.

Watching from afar

I see their imposing beauty

and, like a door ajar,

I spy them through my limited understating.

My family have formed

with these horses a tentative,

fragile bond

so encourage me to see them.

Each day they have walked

the journey down country lanes

and gradually the horses have flocked

to their words of encouragement.

Much stroking of their broad

shoulders and sides,

their snorting and fluttering breaths accord

with the rhythms of their mysterious appreciation

The stamping of a hoof

flickering ears, a sudden movement eye and head

and all become suddenly aloof.

The moment is ended and they move away.

I like to see their beautiful frames

playfully dancing and moving, from afar

So sturdy, wild, yet tamed.

Self-assured, a sage being that truly understands the world.

My daughters tell me

I should come and see them,

but there is a degree

of reluctance inside, I can’t comprehend.

I go and walk along the road,

edged by stone and metal.

We stop, the horses stride

gently towards us

Who have picked grass and straw

I am about to touch one, but

forced to suddenly withdraw

when a stun of electricity shudders me.

The horse does not flinch, is just patiently waiting.

The distance I had perceived

is abating, abating, abating.

We hold a silent stroking communion.

Visiting the horses goes on for days.

Mostly they come to us, sometimes not.

On our last day, our exit is delayed

by the necessity to say goodbye.

My daughters go to them, arrive back heartbroken

I decide I will not make my farewell.

I’d rather keep what I’ve been given

and put my bags in the car.

We drive slowly and finally

down the lane.

I know they are watching.

I blink back tears.

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Story beginning (work in progress)

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Keep your Head’ - a sonnet for keeping it real.

On meeting him sweet first love ignited.

In the fragile heart of a young person,

brain from senses sadly departed.

Heart defiled self, committing self-treason.

He, older, appearing somewhat wiser

from this young woman desired her spark.

But in love to her he was proved a miser

revealing himself a mere husk troubled and dark

Still, she loved him without restriction

allowed him to take her heart

without care or contrition

and hence her love he ripped apart.

Do not ever cast your pearls before swine.

Place yourself on a pedestal ‘til love proves worthy your heart to entwine.

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Hindsight

The swine,

snorting through life and tubs of

Ben and Jerry’s,

the crass man

chucks his money around.

It is all he has.

He thinks it proves

he isn’t such a sad,

empty, waste of time,

Not such a miserly thing

after all.

He drives the best cars,

but is a blank page,

needs drink and fast cars to prop up

his banal personality.

He owns loads of houses,

while many can’t afford

one.

He thinks this is ok

and cloaks this fault

through crooning folk songs

on his guitar as if this

makes his selfish life redeemable.

He uses women and writes about them in his diary, full of sordid

comment, arranging his

love interests like a bank statement.

Keep this one on the ‘back burner’ here.

See that one there.

Debit, credit and transferring women

like bank transactions, for this is

his preferred register of language.

He likes to travel for ‘love’

If that’s what you may call it.

(Others would call it something different)

He engages in one hobby and does this awkwardly and unremarkably.

He thinks he is clever, but is slow and dim-witted.

Setting himself amongst the stupid

in order to make himself look cleverer than he is.

Bereft and lonely.

Empty and calcined, reeking of age and

addiction.

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The a-z of fox

I’ve got ‘the knowledge’.

City streets I’ve made my own,

a navigation inside my head

and all my senses honed.

My feet purposeful, my snout

and yellow torch eyes alert.

Just to stay alive is all my concern,

to get through a day unhurt.

I am a strut of burnished copper

inlayed on dismal suburban landscapes.

Streets and alleys an a-z of food opportunity.

I care not for boundaries or your garden set ups.

I shriek in the night

and cause your senses to shudder

I bring impudent wild to your garden.

I disturb your attachment to civilisation like a boat without a rudder.

Some may think of me

Make offerings scraps of foods.

To many my manners can be deemed offhand

and my stealing and removal of items, rude.

I am wild, wild. I am a spreading

flame of amber throughout your town

leaving scent markers and mysterious signs

readable only to other animals around.

I walk a tightrope of survival everyday.

Can I trust? My senses switched on

My ears and tail wired like a city’s electric grid

One road mistake, I become a ribbon of death life gone.

I would accept some sanctuary

within these cities sirens streets.

My thick tail curled around me

a full stomach, rare stillness, sleep.

Do not attempt to enclose me

Or treat me like one of your dog pets.

I am powerful, magical

A silhouette houdini, the town’s beautiful amber vignette.

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The Frost and the Robin A glistening thin carpet of white Has come surreptitiously, secretively, in the night. The trees carry the white dusting On their branches, leaves hold it like a palm open and trusting. I stand outside spellbound. I feel like I am standing in a frothy sea, the blue half light and the white my night-time mind combine in me To create this mirage of a bobbing sea. Darkness and silence draw their curtains open then to sounds familiar and welcome. The blackbird and robin perform their morning duet Brushing the hedge walking back, frost melts on my cheek, my cheek is wet. The frost is not so invincible And yet, and yet.

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An ubiquity

of sparrows flock by the door.

Chirp chirp chirp. Silence.

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Parakeets perch, I

draw. Lime chatter vs. grey matter.

Colour the moment.

Bandit starlings mount

pillage of feeders, smash, grab,

gone. Where do they go?

Goldfinch March 2020

Confined, but for gar-

den musings. Yellow lightning

wing kept me statue-still.

Peeking side eyed. Red,

gold, black, green. Joy, seeing what

was before unseen.

Now annually,

albeit fleeting,

since first encounter.

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Sanguine- optimistic, confident

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A villanelle for summer

Starched white sheets speak of scented summer days.

Long bright days, careless and fancies free.

Slow, reclined hours, heaven be praised.

They flutter on the air, suspended and laze,

transient shape changers that pine and peak.

Starched white sheets speak of scented summer days.

Feeling as laid back and bare as this cotton haze

floating on air, unaware of diminishing weeks.

Slow, reclined hours, heaven be praised.

Lifted, unbound by stress and malaise,

watching cotton lovers embrace, separate then seek.

Scented white sheets speak of scented summer days.

Open, unravel, close, cotton ballerina’s choreographed phase,

done in silence, no redundant speak.

Slow, reclined hours, heaven be praised.

When summer is done, fondly I recall those days,

through the embers of sun’s rays, glinting and weak.

Starched white sheets speak of scented summer days.

Slow relaxed hours, heaven be praised.

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https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/?s=Live+stream+&type=all

Creative futures live stream writing workshop

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Greer’s review of Sharon Old’s book