breaking bread…

The sun rises. Fire petals light the concrete tangle of bowed buildings pretty in pink. Blaze blooming back up to the sky.

It is hard to sleep when God is at your window and I wake, weary, 5 am reluctant, but awed to come back, to be born back to such a day. I tell myself sleep might just return to me, hide under sheets, but really I know it won’t.

Dreams-eyes rinse off in the bucket and then I’m up-risen, scarf wrapped and out into the dawning.

Cows graze nonchalantly on roundabouts, disregarding barbed wire. The sheep look a little lost. The chickens count claw, scrabbling for secrets, treasures turned up donkey muck. Nervous cats stand sentry, aloof on their upper ground. But I have the streets. This is my line between here and there.

life lived with open windows…

I said I would not do this again, but words are just words. We both know that.

Life takes unexpected turns and it felt right. So I’m here. Another here, flown far from there. Living another life for a little while.

I can’t tell you where I am but I can still speak it, say it. I will try to show you what I see because maybe that will be truer than the truths I can’t tell you.

So there is this.

local boy…

I was having a bad day, ruffled as an indignant pigeon, pride-punched by too much filing and heart-hurt by all the other jobs I can’t seem to get. My angry shoes gave the pavement ‘what for’ as I carved my lunch break up the street, irritable and anxious wondering where there was to could get to.

The homeless guy on the pavement glanced my way. I dredged up a smile for him, for me, staving off guilt at not buying the leaf edged magazines he shuffled, awkwarder than I. I cornered into the shop next door, sailing hard and high on my thoughtless-thoughtful tempests of inner wind – poor me.

And then I heard my name said softly – looked back, wondered where. Went back, looking and saw him still there, saying my name like an apology, a sort of sorry softly spoken.

what I called to say..

Heya bab,

Tonight I headed out of the house in a flurry of coats, hats and scarves as mid March snow drifted down chilly beautiful and utterly indifferent.

I was just popping off round to a friend’s for a cuppa, my sort of dinner in one hand, handbag in the other. As ever trying to pack something into every moment (including that quick step minute it takes me to walk around the corner), I had my phone out of pocket and my finger poised to call you for a quick hello-how-are-you? before I remembered you’re two years dead and long dusted. Awkward that.

life unlived in…

And there are mornings, evenings, afternoons,
Stretching thin to nothing.
I don’t count them now.

And there is tick tock of time that no longer sounds on the clock,
The thrum thrum hum of the copier that inks me in,
Time sheet scanned and sent.
Another day sold and spent.
Authorised.
Stacked up, sliced thin in piles of papers,
Matt, flat, mute to touch.

the package…

My parcel came back.
Six months and 12,000 miles in the journeying.

The woman named-tagged back behind the counter smiled gently,
Suggested I check the address,
Repack.
Resend.
I nodded back pale polite,
Knew the direction three times checked.
It been right, but slipped askew in time.

night walk..

At nine the night is empty,
Snow silent,
Soft with secrets that drift and dream.

The evening flickers bright by TV light.
Through curtain chinks,
Families chew.
That green gleam holds life in sight,
But it is lived elsewhere,
Inside.
Set sofa static.

the quiet guy…

This is for you. This is the thank you I would write you if our lives had not wound off different ways. It is the you I would show you if I could take tours in my head or let you look out of my eyes.

You hide in your stride: the kind of person who passes by unnoticed but deserves a stop.

snow story..

The days break under foot,
Ice bound,
Dead cold,
But beauty blooms resilient.

Another world is just a hedge hop away.
Though it takes grit and grime to get there,
Through snow stained with shit and piss,
Stark and litter studded.

(Sometimes it pays to think of where you want to get to,
And just keep walking,
Through the places you must pass)

planning the pep talk..

I have been quiet. The last weeks and months have been tough and I’ve been short on inspiration, without words.

I still find dawns, sunsets, beauties to breath on, but life has felt a lot like existence rather than living and I haven’t liked that much. I don’t know quite how to live without living…it doesn’t suit me.

A dream has died and I am struggling to shrug off the cling-clutch of its crumbling skins.

I hope there is love for me. But I don’t see it from where I’m standing.

I hope another dream will flourish. But I’m finding it hard to believe in my ability to be anything more than just this.