Solstice Greetings

Wishing you a
healthy and happy
year ahead

My months of 2020

January

In No Time – Tony Cragg (2018)

Lunch in London and Lisson Gallery.
Found Art in the polished grain of a tree.

February

Hiding at Hosehill Lake

At the wildlife reserve of Hosehill Lake
Widgeon, Rail and Grebe take a winter break.
I wait for hours in the hide,
But just one duck is espied,
At the wildlife reserve of No-bills Lake.

March

The Manure Mound

Gardener woc set off with bags and spade
To dig manure from the big mound nearby.
The sun was out after much rain cascade,
So the ground was slippy but woc was spry.
He dug until his strength started to fade
But six sodden bags made him one proud guy.
   Lifting heavy bags with feet not secure
   He fell back in the mud under manure.

April

Pigeon in the Car Park

The limping pigeon
Rests in the disabled space.
Harmony in grey.
Camouflaged bird on the ground,
Will the rushing driver see?

May

Creeping Woodsorrel

Oxalis corniculata– you creeping weed!
Why in my garden do you spread at speed?
Copper-green leaves, yellow flowers so pretty
Makes ousting you from beds such a pity.

June

Boardwalk over Stones

I could walk on stones with bare skin
   When I was young.
Though jibes and harsh words would sink in
I could walk on stones with bare skin.
Old age finds the dermis is thin
Though I am steel to the mean tongue.
I could walk on stones with bare skin
   When I was young.

July

Maidenhead Riverside

A riverside walk for the scenery,
It’s bright flowers, the Thames, I mostly see.
   There as always, old texture and structure.
Found Art in the bark of a weathered tree.

August

Last Apple at Barge Farm

My friends are gone. All fallen, bruised, and not seen
In the nettles. Ignored on our tree of life,
Too hard to get, not packaged. Brave the nettles
   And pluck me. Eat me.

September

Wilder Not Wilding

Ten years or more, my front and back gardens
Have borne fruit and veg from the fourteen beds.
From peas to potatoes, fine specimens
That scrubbed up well to become tasty spreads.
Concerns over the Earth’s environment,
Aired in the media almost every day,
And seeing for myself, made me hell-bent
To do something in whatever small way.
Bought flower seeds good for bees, butterflies.
Raised them in cells as I had with the veg.
Planted out front where they raced to the skies,
A tumble of colours from edge to edge.
   I smile with joy, my patch a wilder kind.
   But it’s not for the neaten-Nature mind.

October

Blue Rucksack

Little Willie had a rucksack.
It was thirty years on his back.
Sewn, glued and patched over those years,
When a seam split he was in tears.

November

Tomato Soup with Yogurt

In tomato soup
imagination is fed
in swirls of yogurt.

December

A New Footbridge

To build a supposedly “smart” M4
The dumb planners have razed the earth for miles.
Hedgerows, bushes, and trees exist no more,
Our horizon is concrete, bricks and tiles.
   We all need to see this route is cockeyed
   And must cross the bridge to the other side.

Ends.

Seeds of Destruction

Seeds of Destruction 1

Get out of my light
or we’ll start to fight.
That’s my water you’re drinking.
We are too many, I’m thinking.
Packed on this tiny patch of earth
such that our future has no worth.
What happened to two-point-four?
Or less, now life span is more.
Man is the problem, there is just no need
to be so plenteous sowing his seed.

Seeds of Destruction 2

I sowed.
They growed.
They’re culled.
I’m dulled.

Half-length

Lockdown Climbdown

I’ve a long list of jobs-to-do
that have been dormant many years.
I’ve had much nicer jobs-to-do
than these bearing problems and fears.

The Covid national lockdown
removed all reasons to defer.
Confined by domestic lockdown,
outdoors was a job I’d prefer.

At the back of my back garden
seven pavement slabs stand upright.
At the side of my front garden
by the drive is their destined site.

All are concrete and big in size,
up to almost a metre long.
I’m seventy years, small in size,
and what strength I once had is gone.

It’s possible I could walk one
up the garden, out to the drive.
It’s probable I would drop one,
break a leg, maybe not survive.

It’s clear the best course of action
is to get help in this instance.
It’s clear that’s illegal action,
in these months of social distance.

The risk within this job-to-do
will leave it dormant many years.
I’ll find a safer job-to-do,
though that job will take many beers.

 

Pier Pressure

When I came up with my fifth idea for something to do, the wife Ellen showed how frazzled the national lockdown had made her, yelling from the kitchen, “Give it a bloody rest. If you want something to do, go take a running jump.” You could tell things were strained under our roof because my last two ideas had been to help out the NHS, and Ellen is a great supporter of our National Health Service. She was out with a placard when they threatened to close our cottage hospital. They still closed it and it’s a good job Downing Street is 250 miles away.

However, what Ellen said gave me a new idea. One to get me out of the house, her something to get her brain round, and the two of us raising money for our NHS.

Finger-lickin’ Flyer (#2)

The same man’s going door to door
in this coronavirus war.
He still licks his thumb
to peel off each one,
so I’m in PPE head to floor.

Finger-lickin’ Flyer

An old man’s delivering flyers
for fattening fast food empires.
He licks his thumb
to peel off each one,
So I put on gloves, bin his flyer.

Unread.

Don’t Give Tuppence

Important Reminder
Direct Debit service update

Dear TalkTalk,

I’ve made some changes on how I offer my standard Direct Debit. If you have Direct Debit activated on my account, I now charge 2p each time you debit my bank account.

If you think this is an unwarranted imposition, being as I neither own nor operate said bank, I would refer you to another company that has imposed a 2p fee for a facility owned and operated by a different company – BT – even though its clients are already paying the BT landline charge.

I am aware my 2p surcharge will generate a pathetic revenue for a colossal loss of customer goodwill. After much careful consideration and no consultation – I don’t care.

Reflect that every time you access my account you will get your desired result whereas, for example, over half my Voicemail messages are unwanted nuisance calls.

If you would like to reset your calling features, visit Your Conscience.

 

Repugnance Recycled

My neighbour is blithely slobbish
the way she just dumps her rubbish.
But what I found – was not that seen.
Nothing ever is black or green.

It is 07:52.
From my back window I look down on a neighbour lifting rubbish off the rear seat of her car and dropping it behind the L-shaped brick wall at the end of the communal lawn of our flats.
Literally, I cannot believe my eyes.
Until she does it again.
Then she drives off.
She actually dumped rubbish on her doorstep.
On my doorstep.
She can live in shit, but don’t turn my home into a slum.
How bloody anti-social.
Her appalling behaviour!

I would speak to the woman, calmly voice my views.
Except we live in south-east England suburbia where no one acknowledges another, let alone speak with them, even to say “Hello, neighbour”.
So my grievance grows, a mental malignancy.
A brain-worm of frustrated exasperation.
Breakfast eaten, not tasted; thoughts gnaw-gnawing.
Where she usually parks by the brick wall, I shall pile her rubbish.
Put a notice on the pile pointing out her unacceptable ways.
I shall wait until darkness, smash the side window of her car.
Stuff all her rubbish back where it came from.
First I need to see its magnitude.
Down to ground floor, along the hall, round the corner to the brick wall.
With camera ready.
In the L-angle I see a wheelie bin.
A rubbish bin.
I try to dump all my malicious imaginings.
My appalling behaviour!

Wait a second.
The bin lid is flung back, left open to let in rain and vermin.
The bin is brimful of rubbish.
The bin is green.
Green for garden waste not for landfill.
The Council won’t empty it – not the right contents.
The gardeners won’t empty it – not in their remit.
The residents won’t stop overfilling it – not their problem.
I recycle my first assessment.

A Cuckoo in the Cropfest

Alarm! An intruder now stands in my veg plots.
An unsavoury among beans, fruit, toms and pots.

A brash and showy unexpected self-seeder,
compared to the comestibles – a loss leader.

It might have dropped from a packet of Johnson’s seed,
that mix of pollinators to bring bees to feed.

At that it fails, attracting only hover-flies.
This plant’s not food, it courts striped fakes, and blossoms lies.

Crops and Purple Cranesbill