Hunger Games

At the end of our little flight

- right among the scrambling moments

when people panic, stand and panic again

(grabbing their luggage) a lovely girl

twirled and kissed her handsome boyfriend

- open mouthed like a hungry fish

unhinged her jaws and swallowed head,

shoulders, torso, then his legs.

She looked around and gulped down a fatter girl,

whole, and formed a bigger plan for dinner

- wings and fuselage, engine, petrol, oil,

all inside her belly, masticated.

Frustrated now, she turns her beady eye

towards the airport, city – walks along and hugs her belly, sighs.

Stopping,

most people on a flying train

would ‘get’ that space is time

- that space is limited,

- that time is ticking fast;

and an emptier tunnel is coming,

where (at a moment when brakes won’t work)

the tracks run out and we don’t know

who will steer or drive the engine on

but if you ask Andrew

to stop singing and dancing

he’ll look direct and quizzical

to say ‘Oh what!?’ and then ask

the big bad ask we all could ask;

‘Are you mad, mate, are you mad?’

Autumn

Plentiful, a few leaves rattle overhead;

uncountable , brown collateral

-  mulch of a future generation

and, every second, a dry cornflake floats

or plummets onto muddy autumn ground;

to be soaked and eaten by water, worms and earth.

Whilst airborne, no longer fixed or allied

to a mother tree with her branch and fire; deep, deep roots,

but, re-formed, sways away from her great connection

(with soft-hard edges) into a new collective.

Heading for chemical, mineral, damned decay

in a spinning fall from old body to new body

at the turn of the season, heading inevitably into

a turn of the year.

Writer's Block

Like a stroppy teenager, one blank page defies

my intention to write down words:

an empty mind and empty paper.

Silence, blank, void – until I listen with intent

and hear my train trundle and rumble South.

I let a pen leak a few words

and some thing’s down there now.

I learned the duties of a clown from Andrew:

at home in a world of nonsense,

turning up voltage again and again;

not perfectly perfect but urging

inclusion; connecting the hearts of some people

through smiles – with spaces between all their talking and words,

where, truly, a mystery lies.

Pass the Buck

Happiness seems

to COME out from

a small centre

- in a ray – a

SHOW of teeth, but

can be also

rude or vulgar,

expressing as

an anima

(Carl Jung would say).

Happy people

feel an inner

RUSH and Andrew

learned, this year, to

swear (in his own

way) intense, org-

asmic splurging

four letter words

like in a cough

or sneeze, a lit-

tle BRAY

     ‘if you

can’t find a way

to sing or sway,

BUCK yourself up,

make a noise, play

and dance today,

I’ll shout and spray,

and cry, exclaim’

he’ll say

    ‘Buck off!’

Habits

I smack

the same ball

at the same wall.

Numbskull!

My version

of what’s in front

is a blinkered person

marching, drunk.

I’m a disgrace:

today I caught

a grayling fish,

lost my rainbow trout.

Apart from this,

I do exist;

remembering

a little bliss.

When Andrew’s at the karaoke,

eyes are drawn to a young star

that only wise men follow;

microphone and punching arms,

exuberant little fellow.

We look and look – he burns a hole

in boredom - can we learn

beyond our resignation, beer,

to tread the boards and burn?