Within the sandy confines of the beige fronted streets I pass Sometimes lost in a shady labyrinth, of narrow paths A confusing shortcut making a wrong turn Spilling me then into crowds of Saturday shoppers Newly trendy vendors selling specialities in street arty squares Places to be where freshly brewed coffee perfumes the air
Born again quarters named after new tram stops Ushering in gentrification through organic food shops
Despite its many changes of direction This street map holds on to my affection
Only I can see the tracing paper layer of where I see the traces of moments of our lives in places
The cartography of my memories overlayed The coordinates that my heart strings played Etched in the air, as I turn that corner there As if sketched on a layer of see through paper The image of a memory’s trailing vapour Of a moment, years ago, at this exact location
Sharing books with one you love, talking of books you have loved and lived through their characters now in you.
The rifling through colourful covers almost coveting their re discovery
That one, takes you back always a girl when inside those pages, the person you were whatever your age was when that story first inhabited you, as it still does now
Making you up made of that book, now it takes one you love into it’s embrace its story never to be erased
This one, stirs your heart with an almost love sick yearning to be turning back time to be the one first opening it’s chapter one but knowing now, it will capture one you love, who will follow your footsteps down this path to you, getting closer.
Who wants a lift
When you can do this
When you can take a whiff
Of the scents of leaves underfoot
When you can sniff the air
Feel the softest breath of the breeze on your skin
Feet sinking into soft pathways
Freshly made by the morning rain
For too long I didn't know
Nothing is better than a slow stroll
Close to the river's ebb and flow
A tree canopy so close it looks like a stroke
Of green feather dusters
wiping the sky clean
Of clouds
It's sharp blue astonishing
Clear of all but the yellow rays of sun
Reflected artfully in window panes
Duplicated on the rippled surface
Glimpsed between dancing plants
As I glance
On my way past, in rapt attention.
Is chat GPT bad at poetry or is it me?
Does it have to rhyme to record my feelings
at one time or another
To track what was important,
like an I woz ere graffiti from the 80's
AI IS here
accelerating what we now know,
exacerbating my nostalgia,
for an era we once knew,
a slow time.
When you’d simultaneously press play and record hearing that song you liked on the radio
that clunk summed it up
the clumsy effort, to be rewarded with a proper play back loop
Not a fake feedback loop
Back when scarcity of information and an itch for knowledge made us visit the library
to use microfiche
green writing filling a screen full of satisfying curiosities.
Searching shelf by shelf to get knowledge
Following the clues all the way to the copy machine
The world was in a book
The world book
A case of knowledge,
we took the time to digest.
A slow life to be lived
whilst gently polluting as if we knew nothing of it.
You wonder what you want,
What you desire,
To what you aspire.
You ask what you will need,
To leave the vacuum
That you assume
Why not
Take stock
Of what you’ve got
Of what is here, now for the taking?
Look around you
To see those who
Are not faking.
Who need no reminding,
Who are still finding,
In you,
Enough.
You
Why do you who,
Makes flowers grow from words
Why do you who,
Shapes graceful gardens
in paragraphs
Why do you whose,
majestic rivers of rhyme
Flow, Just so
Why do you,
landscaper of ideas, hold on
To your feelings, and fears
As the breeze blows in on the air
So we grow from worries shared
To free your mind from many cares
Let go of your balloon of fears,
And watch it as they disappear,
Dispersing dandelion clocks
Tied up in knots inside and locked,
From outside wisdom closed and blocked,
Your worries start to take control
They take up space they growl they grow.
So open up and let them go
And no more seeds of sadness sew
To grow into weeds of your anxieties.
Instead, favored with air
fair weather
Light as a feather
Cut free
You will blossom
As yours is genius beauty and creativity.
Much to do
Many tasks
Doing all, that
'To do list' asks
Listing forgotten
Things all night
Tense, and preoccupied
Drinking coffee, Nerves fried
For what?
Breathe?
I’ve tried.
Tick things off
More appear
It’s now, I’m here,
But not present
I’m off in my head.
To what end its not clear.
One day of rain
And everything had changed
Not wanting to complain
But seeing nothing was the same
I turned to a new page
Through milk bottle bottom lenses
No longer sure of what I saw
I'd misunderstood what was intended
knocked to the ground
By the ungrateful crowd
Who'd booed without a sound
I'll count my blessings
Say I've learned new lessons
Wait for the next rays of human kindness
To cure my temporary blindness
Catch an elusive moment
As a wisp of smoke
Grasped between your fingers
While on the air afloat
A concentrated flavour
To taste to feel to savour
A satisfying potion
To stop time in its motion
The tastiest bite of peach
Gives way beneath your teeth
The darkest chocolate piece
Its bittersweet released
That moment sun hits skin
You feel the place you're in
Come on and close your eyes
Don’t let this chance slip by
The very music of your being
Is in the details you’re not seeing.
Unsaid unsung unseen Such hidden fears play out in the deepest hour of my sleep On the mind’s eye cinema screen To leave a lasting daylight question mark When daylight finally might Deign to compete with this phone so artificially bright In my hands a fountain of other scenes to distract from what has not been
Waking in the early hours slowly emerging from a cloying nightmare Leaving a snail trail of still real-seeming storyline The phones’ dimmed but still too bright light guides me back A beacon of real preoccupation to distract From the lurking fears brought to life in cinematic deep sleep To the real yet unreal lives of other people From the half strangers still posting on my feeds To the real strangers’ Times’ reported deeds Stories to distract from the dread acted out at night inside my head.
