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Mind Tricks

I keep my red hat 
on a little blue table.
It helps me to be cheerful
through the day.
 

 

 

Remembering

 

When distress wrings my innards

and I tremble in the night at the very slightest sound

in dread of what our human future might be,

I go to recline in the Mid Wales woodland

where the red kite soars in artistry above the trees

and the yoga posing heron ‘statues’ mid-river, eyeing for feed.

 

I mingle with the beauty of untamed things who

do not vex themselves with the prediction of possible sorrows.

I dip into the stillness of mute pools and shallower, chattering waters.

I make tentative footsie with ancient, cold, wet stones.

 

I sense that heavenly twinkle, which I sometimes overlook;

day-blind stars, awaiting their ‘dark skies’ night time, real time to shine and

in those ever-so-splendiferous moments,

I remember peace.

 

 

 

 

Watching Him Sleep

 

The quickening flicker of eyelid skin, velvet soft

but holding in the cinema show that Hypnos brings

at forty past the Sandman.

 

 

 

Insomniac Extreme

Repeated images,
projected, woolen but strong,
against a backdrop
of inner eyelids.
Yawn.

A quarter century,
of conscious thought.
Insomniac extreme,
this way
born.

Restless nights,
break dancing on crumpled linen.
Her over thumped pillow,
abused and
well worn.

Images repeated,
sheep jumping fence
10,875 ... 86
and sleep comes,
at twenty five,
to Dawn.

 

 

 

A Pace War with Chaos

Morning pulls the carpet from stairs beneath my feet
in the same way as the trickster pulls the table cloth away
from the table leaving grandmas finest Clarice Cliff intact.

While I start with clear conceptions, orderly and neat,
a chaos rabbit leaps out of a nearby hat in disarray
and shouts “I’m late !”, But I’m the one at scamper rate. How abstract !

 

 

 

Megan’s Magic Ballet Mice

They chanted thrice, then three times more,
tapped their dance shoes on the floor
then vanished in a shower of glitter,
much to the shock of the babysitter.

 

 

 

Spirited Inspiration

Perhaps the ghost of William,
scripted miniature, perfect stage-plays
on the inside of my eyelids while I slept perchance to dream.

 

 

 

Little Miss Meticulous

I think I shall die on a Friday,
in black shiny shoes
and a dress that's pressed particularly nicely.
I think I shall die precisely.

I think I shall die precisely.
I think I shall die at MY chosen time.
Morning feels right. Yes, morning feels fine !
I think I shall die at nine.

I think I shall die on a Friday at nine.
I think I shall die in a place of my choice
away from the noises and voices of reason.
I think I shall die in this frosty season,
in a perfect place of my choice.

I think I shall die on a Friday at nine in a perfect place of my choice.
I think I shall go with no tears in my eyes, no regrets and no fear in my voice.
I think I shall have me a last shallow breath, carbon monoxide, cowardly death.
I'll plan to perfection, I'll not be revived.
I think I shall die
contrived.

 

 

 

Etchings ~ by Mr. J. Frost

They never met Jack (my children I mean),
though his painting’s, to me, were amazing!

He'd gone by the time my babies were born;
Forced back by the new double glazing.

 

 


A Commendable Regression

With a seething fullness of shimmering shine
the complex contents tumbled forth;
a trove of treasure became part mine
while Dora cradled the ransacked box.

But amateur handling jaded the sheen
so rolling backward stone by stone
each jewel returned to where it had been …
Dora smiled ~ and polished the locks.

 

 

 

A Damned Fine Place

They trickle by, treacle-slow,
in synchronized formation.
Five hundred walk, ashen-faced,
right through the congregation
who do not see, or sense or smell
that something is awry
They sit, in calm oblivion,
as five hundred souls walk by.
Displaced,
expelled,
evicted
from their place of final rest.
Unearthed,
exhumed,
discarded
so the land can then be blessed,
reclaimed,
re-used,
re-classified.
No more this hallowed ground,
shall be the bed where sleep the dead,
a new use has been found.
A housing estate for families,
with a school,
a shop,
a Church.
A fine place for the living
while the dead, they roam and search
and trickle past, treacle-slow,
in synchronized formation.
Condemned to walk, forever more,
right through the congregation.

 

 


Unfolding

Life within uneven layers:
Creased,
un-creased
and re-creased
every day.

 

 

 

A Thoughtful Equivalence

A self-orchestration,
her slow, intense demise
was the obvious culmination
of a million trivial suicides.

Insignificant inhalations
climaxed
to that (never say the “C” word)
small cell hell.

The resulting “Godspeed” journey
to her final mortal sleep
became a humbling expedition
and the tears we were to weep
would come pronounced
but unpredicted.

For we, “the kin,”
pre-armed
and with our selfish thoughts constricted
would inflict on the afflicted,
a most honourable deception.

A battle that was winnable (we swore!)
and armed with a prescription
for medicinal ammunition
we marched ahead
to pointless, futile war.

We gathered, strong, all allies
to deliver fond disguises
of benevolent little lies
and fine-formed
pretty preconceptions.

… or misconceptions maybe,
for I think, perhaps the lady
(with an understated wisdom)
played along to an
equivalent degree.

 

 

Fishin' 4 Elefants

Dali and I,

while fishing for elephants,

fell by mistake

on a swan covered lake

and drowned in

arrangements

of baritone

eloquence;

drawn through

the fine lines

impressionists make.



Through ripples,

reflections,

refractions and likewise

we floated like oil

on peripherals of blue

and danced

the last tango

in sepia dejection,

with him

looking inward

and me

seeing through.

 

 


 

 

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