Stretch

What paces now
paced then.
When times two listens
each costs the other
about as much again.
In all probability I didn’t hear what was said.
As a shoe is unlaced
does the foot question?

An occasion approaches:

satisfaction eludes the unripe; in reverse the beginning is an end already reached. Life normally presents cover, if you can distinguish between light and dark. When I saw you again after all these years, I chose a series of reactions you would think natural. I had always wrapped up well, by reminding myself to forget the white shirt left behind.

For a lemon
to make a comeback
it must confess to rind
the citric hypocrisy of its
flop.

Real as this
judgement is, sweet-talking
doesn’t always fool the juicer.

In Shape

Off duty survival
has an uncertain way
of preservation. With
nowhere to go besides
the centre, a rotation
may not change your view.
I agree, there is freedom
in circles, where you can leer at curves,
and prowl boundaries; deciding your own
dimensions. But these points between points
only direct, for as long as you see yourself as round.

The colour of reading,
like a straight rainbow,
thrives in the mind's eye
where pigment meets lid.
There is nothing that cannot
call itself blue
from time to time,
or wonder if treading
on the hands of a clock
might divide the hours.
As in the case of some
histories, the 'i's
undot themselves
and draw a line under
the unforgettable.
It was you who told me,
and it came between us.

Triumph in miniature
lends balance to rigour;
sandwiched between r ‘n’ r
a tastier loan might
forfeit this filler.

Reading Reacts

A collaborative project by Amanda Cragg, student of Chelsea College of Art & Design: The London Institute, with writers and poets "...to show new possibilities as to how literature can be integrated into people's lifestyles. It explores the placement of literature, and the relationship that it can form between the viewer and their surrounding environment."

Visit Reading Reacts to find out more, view images of completed works around the city, ongoing ideas, and to read or make comments. An extract of my poem Bus Stop was displayed on a digital bus timetable on Monday 29th May in London. Images of which can be seen at the blog.

Bus Stop

a temporary halt
where waiting tires of itself
as oncoming traffic
remains red-less;
how the eye yearns
for a numerical match
that adds home
to the equation

In receipt of a lifetime
that chalks up continuation
at a knotless rate. Interlaced
with silk, whose worm hasn’t
yet turned. A thread between
day and night, re-tangles us
with stories untold. Where, to
discriminate between fictions
only leaves room for one
thing after another.

Seated: the body's
messages bend, loyal
to edgy lyrics, an
arrangement archived

for posterity. The havoc
that safeguards attack,
also wrongly names
accomplishments that

just happen to gain.