Glimpse

We had a chat
about a rat;
yours a giant,
mine - a tyrant.

We made a jigsaw
like a sunset;
an orange (I saw)
you saw red

but only when my fruit
and your new fangled colour
merge do we, in truth,
create an apple’s figure

- and the rat, of course,
was a very helpful chap.

Sleep Tight

Today I walked past loads of doors
and, do you know, I had an urge
to reach and turn every handle;
see what lurks on the other side.

Something within us loves
hidden rooms, locked;
a key, a push, a creak,
a prisoner running free,

but tonight
when earth turns;

doors will bolt,
locked like clams,
holding tight
onto watery dreams.

Christened:

when they wet my head,
I never quite got over it;
water in my eyes, stinging,
and all that cooing, praying, singing

but (worse) the name they hung on me!
I’ve carried that old monica
from here to Timbuktu.

They didn’t even call me ‘Peggy Sue’,
‘Cecilia’ or ‘Suzanne’
like in all my favourite pop songs.

I wonder whether
(if they’d stuck me with a different handle)
my life would’ve had more scandal,
been suitably re-formed ---- or better?