Days

The alarm goes off – on the dot –

and a stagger to the shower

fires my skin into a heat-map:

another day and a dollar.

The Northern Line is running well

- I’m told – and wide-eyed travelers sniff

on the way to London Bridge, sigh

when train doors sigh. Monks for prayer,

people assemble here

carrying bread, briefcases, stars

on posters smile and sparkle.

A crowd of muffled dervishes

is falling through time like days:

trusting (this day) fire can kindle rainbows; little hearts.

Click, click,click,click

Knock knock! Who’s there?

Clickety click,

behind a door.

I’m glad

that door is closed

between a pecking sound

and me - for sure

that sound is not for me – knock, knock -

because if I crack open

the little door’s edge, I will surely want to change

whatever’s lurking there

and it might, maybe, turn me

into more of what I am

or whatever I could be.

Modern Yorkshire Man

T’roof leaks

on t’conservatory.

Around and about

puddles on deck

wrecking red carpet

since 1997

and my missus upset

- just by piddling rain!

Tell you wot, I’ll buy a new carpet

with mi silver credit card

and give ‘er happiness

in a mo.

I copped it, yer,

I buy it.

Curtains

My mother fainted
into our hearth one morning.
She covered up her pain
but I called in from school
at lunch to check she seemed
OK and fried myself two eggs.

Yesterday my sons attacked pasta
and daytime, little by little, dropped.
We talked and ate spaghetti, draped
it over forks. Hanging together
unites a family. After a plateful,
a net of connection fluttered a sparkle.

Nowadays
eating pulls me to myself,
makes me seem to need
to sleep, close up,
to droop, draw in,
stop light.

Parents eventually do drop, but my young family
celebrated the final wink of a sun
and stars raised - their bellies and mischievous eyes,
before curtain call, never still.