The Rookery Redux The rain collects by drains stopped up with fatbergs from the eateries, in cracks and trips of slabs laid slipshod and craftless. Step carelessly and soak your shoes. Do you belong here? Do you loop grey nets to foil the suck and growl of traffic’s heat? Do you open your windows at all? At night the seven streets pinball each drunk chorus, … Continue reading Two poems by Kathy Pimlott
Five Unusual Things You open the quarter-lights, get out of the car. ‘Five minutes’ you say ‘and while I’m gone, look for five unusual things’. And I’m alone on a back street of workshops and offices. No-one appears. There are no balloons, no burglaries. Nothing disturbs the street. Two thirds up the warehouse wall the brick course swivels ninety degrees, three fanciful rows and then … Continue reading ‘Five Unusual Things’ by Kathy Pimlott
Plait The trick is to hold three braids in two hands and ignore the logistics of mornings. Wind the first over the second, then cross the third over the first, and so on. Don’t get cross with excessive fidgeting, or arguments slipping like hoarded minutes out of hand. Keep a zen-like calm in your fingers. Remember even school mornings don’t last forever. Focus on this … Continue reading ‘Plait’ by Emma Simon
Earplugs Some mornings I wake up, find them pressed into my hair, dangling like two small clumps of snow on the ears of a cocker spaniel. I’d like to ask him upstairs as he enters his flat, to please switch off your gristly cough and mute your feet. I know silence, I held it in my hands once: a one-sided 7” single – so blasphemous … Continue reading Two poems by Stuart Mckenzie
