Clown contortions

There is a strange ceiling collection
Of clowning acrobats
Hanging from the corners of your room.

They are clever contortionists
Silent, suspended figures
You say your predecessor left for you.

They do not swing or sway
Keeping Mum,
As you mouth and moan in gaelic tones.

They play their part better than you
A gleeful tableaux
Mocking, as you act the bedroom fool.

Strawberry liquorice

(I've put this one up at the request of a boy I met at the Scribe magazine launch this very night. It gestated on my phone's notepad for a while, before surfacing in front of the mic.)

That woman smells

of strawberry liquorice.

I wonder if she has strands of it

tucked up in her neat hair,

covertly tugging out one at a time

for a tasty treat in a boring meeting.

Bury me in the Dales

(Writing comes most easily to me on trains. Mostly. Here's one from a rail journey through Yorkshire last Summer.)

Bury me in the dales.
That is all I long for.
Tucked away on a sun burst day
With crisp white cut-out clouds
(from your own kindergarten classes’ lessons)
and green folds enveloping
my senses.
Tired on time and drowsy,
I feel the trembling of the train’s engine
shudder up through my feet
up through my seat,
I am greedy for the dales.
Glugging down its errant
Knavely stance,
Drunk, and drugged
Huddersfield’s golden stone
glows rich and gleaming
and I imagine how it must have been
One afternoon in long-distant days
To find oneself steaming -

Oh to be
immersed
in the moors -

Steaming along