Against red brick skies
buddleias sprung from towers.
Empty summer streets.
*************
Outside the semi-derelict former Methodist Central Hall, Birmingham.
A jewellery display
made by refugee women.
Tears pearl on my cheek.
**************
I visited a jewellery exhibition in Birmingham yesterday. Sometimes simple things are inspiring (and should be supported more widely). Search the hashtag for more information.
In the gym café
a grandmother lifts her cup
with a teenage arm.
***************
I felt stiff and old yesterday, watching some much older and fitter women enjoying coffee and newspapers after their gym session.
Roots, shaking off earth,
glow white, like worms. I toss them,
dead, into the hedge.
***********
Gardening is a brutal affair sometimes.
A band playing jazz
under a tree in the rain –
drops weighting its leaves.
***********
They were about to get very wet.
Early summer rain
scatters rose petals and scents
of an eager earth.
********************
It’s been raining a lot here this week.
Nineteen eighties chairs,
kitchen units and sofas
filling empty rooms.
*****************
Meeting the leader of a local authority and seeing the dire state of our democracy at first hand.
A tiny cyclist
head down, speeding. I move left
and bask in mum’s smile.
********************
Time to start writing again.
Too soon night’s watching lights dissolve and fade;
make way for fractured skies, which draw each tree
from lightening hills, like tunes from darker sounds.
Too soon the starlings rise; too soon the wind;
too soon the traffic’s beat, impatient feet
on crowded streets; heads sway like wheat, too soon.
Too soon shop windows fill with plastic life;
too soon bored workers close their minds to dreams;
too soon a jilted lover locks her heart.
Then streetlights fight again with rising stars
which grow like crowds, arrived too soon to watch
as time consumes our hopes – too soon, too soon.
Still blue autumn day;
whispers of frost on the roof.
A red vine leaf falls.
poetry diary 