Arthritic ageist.

 I am an ageist now,

I hate my arthritic finger,

Which is crooked and makes me drop

That which I attempt to hold.

I hate the grind of bone on bone

In my arthritic knees.

I love watching birds

Envying the elegance of their flight.

When I stagger out

Balancing with walking stick

And shopping trolley

To put rubbish in dustbins

All of ten yards

It’s my journey for the day

Then I watch people walking by in the street

Every stride they take

Looks as miraculous as flight to me

I am an earthbound and static ageist

Replaying memories

And listening to music played by ghosts

Waiting to be carried to the grave

That is why I am an

Arthritic ageist.

staggershit

 Sometimes when I stagger out to shit,

In the middle of the night,

I hear a robin singing,

And I wonder if it is trying

To sweeten the darkness.

Sometimes when I stagger out to shit

In the middle of the night,

I hear a randy dog fox

Barking sharply.

I wonder if this sounds romantic to a vixen.

Sometimes when I stagger out to shit

In the middle of the night,

I hear a police helicopter's blades slicing the air ,

As it circles searching,

To mount surveillance

On us villeins below.

Sometimes when I stagger out to shit

In the middle of the night,

I hear nothing.

So I sit and shit quietly

In suburbia.

shredsong

 

My shredder sings to me

As I feed documents in

Between its sharp gnashing teeth

Selections from my history get eaten

Strips of paper are shat out beneath.

This is the way I edit my past

Edit my past

Edit my past

And censor my information

I cut up the things that I wish to hide

Wish to hide

Wish to hide

And send them to incineration.

So the metal music

Of the shredder’s blades

Sends me into reverie

And I dream of forest glades

And the song of the chainsaw.

POSTCARD FROM LONDON 29 DECEMBER 2021

A leafless tree

Writes a black branched script

Against a winter sky.

Then a crow flies in

Perches on the tree

And changes the whole story.

SOLSTICE 2021

 Why is that grey pigeon

Sprinting through greyer and greyer sky,

On a dying midwinter day?

As I see it dive between the two houses

Opposite me,

It looks desperate,

It looks like it’s making an escape.

Yet this is not the weather

For hawks to hunt.

It’s a time to run home,

It’s a time to feel

Fear and despair

If you’re alone.

So, fly home to some sort of safety.

To a place where you can

Huddle down

And wrap your feathers around you

To keep warm

Hide from harm and wait,

Now it’s getting late

But soon the days will become

Longer and lighter again.

plughole

 

It’s time to go down the plughole,

Where the whirly waters whirl,

And vault into the vortex,

Where currents continually curl.

It’s time to alter your orbit

Like a star approaching its end,

Or a hair floating in a bathroom sink,

So you’ll get pulled down the black hole,

Where both time and light will bend,

Then travel by drainpipe and sewer

Be riverbourne into the ocean,

Evaporate and fall again as rain,

Back to earth, where more plugholes await.

Cheesage

Swifts have all gone to Africa again,

 Summer starts to die

 But I'm not growing old. 

 Instead I've decided to mature

 Like a ripe old cheese.

 So I start to smell and

 Small black flies gather

 To hover above my head. 

 Every morning 

I scrape Blue mould from my knees.