Lateral Thinking

She was feeding the ducks

On the boating lake

On a frosty morning

When I stopped to speak.

She too had noticed the swans gone,

Flown after the storm.

A casual statement about her husband

Dropped into our conversation

Like a pebble dropped into the frosted lake.

He’d had a tracheostomy and banked his voice

Before surgery. He’d been fond of the mot-juste

And gentle in his speech. She wondered about loss, 

How Bill may forever gasp and wheeze

while others shout about small boats.

In the Rose Garden two great tits

Feed from her petalled hand. How easy

To do no harm and cease from ill-will

In this finite world

Whilst others rant and nail harsh words

To rising seas. 

A Provisional Narrative

I lay off reading the new

musical criticism        and place

it on top of the beat poet’s

manifesto      which  lies on top

of the novel in the 21st century

which lies on top of creating poetry

              step outside

avoiding eye contact with an addict

slumped against a wall     consider

if my life were  jazz 

would I choose trumpet 

or saxophone

I like both      so could be a combo

bebopping  

through a thousand sycamore keys

along back lanes      littered with rain-soaked books

sofas     and syncopated cats 

in the park     the new musical criticism   takes note

of squawking gulls     children’s  train-ride

and trembling trees      layer upon layer

no absolute values    according to the new

paradigm     so best make the most 

of the whole buzzing beautiful cacophony    best

make some connection    with the music

Bruegel comes to town

Before I realise   time flies   I’ve been pouring over Bruegel

for more than an hour    I pick up my shopping list    

twenty minutes later     sees me in the high street

peasant faces everywhere I look    The Big Issue Seller 

is a strolling player     but has the use of both her legs   and sight

Cheese      bread and   earthy vegetables are on my list    

I can barely make out the scrawl            A merchant 

drops a sack of something on the floor     The girl at the till

leers and makes a crack    The tomatoes are Dutch     no English

apples anywhere I search       I glimpse a proverb over there

something about a man without money is a corpse    coins chink

in the till      On my way out I pass a crazy woman   clad in iron armour     

wielding a sword       striding into the shop

References: Dulle Griet by Bruegel the Elder.