WRONG AND RIGHT

Something about this is wrong
This car-peopled asphalt desert
This severe architecture
All edges and angles
Not a crack in the pavement
Not a weed in the flower bed
Trimmed bushes with no flowers
Deathly silence
A discarded dust mask
A dirty wet wipe on a lawn
Five minutes later in the wood
Everything feels right
The soaring limes rise like massive pillars
Worshipping the dawn
The fluty calls of a song thrush
Answered by the insistent alarm of a great tit
Treebark weaves sinuous patterns
Pools of light illuminate small clearings
In shadier glades
Bluebells stand to attention
Soldiers in massed ranks
Saluting the day

HAUNTED BY YOU

I roam uneasy pavements
Blossom on the wet grass
Something stirs inside me
A memory from the past

I turn to you
Then feel your loss
I'm standing there alone
No traffic here
The streets are ours
In this strange town of ghosts
Haunted by you

I sense a sudden presence
A shiver runs down my spine
Standing there beside me
As the season rolls back time

I turn to you
Then feel your loss
I'm standing there alone
No traffic here
The streets are ours
In this strange town of ghosts
Haunted by you

HUMAN MAGPIE

Early morning walk
Seeing with new eyes
A human magpie
Stealing experience
Every new discovery a small miracle
A maple trunk decorated with psychedelic lichen
Dayglo azaleas in pink and purple
A tiny snail crossing the wet pavement to safety
A massive Ionic capital
Transported from ancient Greece
Festooned with deep green moss
A song thrush alarmed in the bluebell wood
An erratic milky white pebble lying in the gutter
Just waiting to be picked up and taken home
A useful addition to a garden border
Then turning a corner
A supermarket delivery driver
Engine on
Head down
Scrolling through the content overload
He doesn't look up
He doesn't notice
The curious magpie in the empty street

NINEVEH

HUMAN JOURNEY

Time contracts
I blinked and the future was already here
Life in brackets
Swamped by a much greater text
Science mines and searches
Antimacassar
Common ancestor
Mitochondrial mother
Embargoed newsflash unleashed to the world
It is after seven, isn't it?
Diverging evolutionary paths
Parallel strands of evidence
Culture accumulates drip by drip
Complex social networks
Ideas that stick in the consciousness
Archaeologist burrows inside the mind of the maker
How he built up his toolkit
The teardrop explodes
Primitive accountant scratches out a living
Ancient artists and musicians daub the caves with song
They say neanderthals taught the moderns to paint
Distracted journalist looks the other way

DREAMING OF SARAH

NORDIC EYES

Nordic smile
Watching you bathe
Steam rising from your skin

Nordic eyes
Pierce with their gaze
Pale as the meltwater

Nordic eyes
Cross my heart and hope to die
Nordic eyes
Snow-blind in the sunshine

Nordic skies
Darken and fade
Lost in the pine forests

Northern lights
Guiding my way
Prints linger in the snow

Nordic eyes
Cross my heart and hope to die
Nordic eyes
Snow-blind in the sunshine

Fleet of longships
Sails before dawn
Warm my cold lips
Wrap me in reindeer skin

MUSEUM OF BROKEN HEARTS