The day TV went digital
I sat and watched the fire,
Intrigued by the battles of the flames
That could rival any Kardashian divorce
And the stages of character
As wood turned to ash
Like sand through the hourglass.
The kindling provided its own commentary,
With a hiss and a crackle
And the convoluted demise of each chunk of wood
Was anything but cut and dried
Playing out an ancient storyline
Behind glass, beneath my eaves.
Home
‘Home’ migrates, but has not yet caught up with the miracle of air travel. Rooted to the land, it plods southward, step by step, until the tipping point is reached
and instead of ‘going home’
we ‘come to visit.’
Friday Poem
The hours stretch out
as far and flat as the surrounding plains.
In this town
‘as far as the eye can see’
is an optical illusion
and ‘are we nearly there yet?’
has long since been left unsaid.
Kilometres tick by like minute hands
steady, steady, going nowhere fast
but adding up to distance
and to dinnertime
tomorrow after tomorrow after tomorrow,
leaving the future
a horizon never reached
on the long drive home.
Cambridge Chimes
For whom do the bells toll?
A new generation,
making their exodus
from province and providence
to a new promised land
of late night shopping,
cars and careers,
traffic jams and tears,
and loss at the realization
that this ‘land of milk and honey’
is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Thursday Poem
The clock chimes every quarter hour.
My watch doesn’t agree – on strike,
it’s ticking backwards.
‘Light Moisturising Handcream’
tries in vain to hide
the troughs in skin
and bridge crevasses:
Like an ice bridge, it’s temporary
and not to be trusted
with the weight of a life.
The clock strikes four.
It’s cold outside.
Another Winter, on its way.
Monday Poem
The clock chimes ‘lunchtime’
and echoes through the square
in the crisp midday air.
The sky is high today
and glazed, like blue pottery.
In the domain
orange leaves shake themselves free
at their leisure
Inside, the fuschias are wilting.
Tuesday Poem
The grass is getting cut,
razed back,
and invading my lunchtime
with the energy
of a munching HummmRAAARhumm.
The room is in shadow.
On the windowsill my
pot plants struggle
to defeat gravity
and yellow lilies wilt.
Outside, the grass
grows shorter.
Linguistic Gymnastics 