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Home with Miz Quickly
Dusty Colour Clouds Dawn, and the neighbour’s cock crows. Restless sleep, seems night never came. I stare at morning’s clouds. Dusty colours. Traffic echoes. Fades. The earth murmurs. Conversation is quiet. Silent. Held in a box for breakfast. And I stare at dusty colour clouds. for Miz Quickly’s Back Home
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Wrecking with Miz Quickly
Wrecking the Song of the Witches (from Macbeth) Double up up, double up, toil for trouble, fire burns a caldron’s bubble. Fillet a fenny, boil a newt a toe, fleece a bat’s tongue. A bewitched hell-broth trouble. Double up up, double up, arms firm and strong. Miz Quickly goes about wrecking poetry
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A Minute for Miz Quickly
A Pluck and Straighten About those eyebrows drawn thick and dark, and shaped liked a gull’s wing. When I was young, we plucked them in a shapely line, gold tip tweezers, and then drew them back in again. We ironed our hair to make it straight, stuck flowers behind our ears … when we were…
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Sleepless with Miz Quickly
Awake I’m counting sheep black as pitch, and stars on midnight blue, and I count my bony fingers and chubby toes, while I ignore my creaking knees. They bitch like angry squirrels whenever I move, whenever I sigh, and whenever I hear you snore, I can’t ignore those sounds that keep me awake as the…
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Up
Up We sing high as rising smoke, circles that float soft as silt. Rising food for a sprinkle of stars. Our feet shuffle, rustle at leaves, and kiss the wind. This week’s word at Three-Line-Thursday is “Rings”
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Miz Quickly Does Blue
Reclaimed Blue This blue can fly, eyes and windows almost sea blue clear, almost sand, almost time to talk with tongues unwet. A painter and a canvas and all blue flies. Process notes: My neighbour was painting window frames. For Miz Quickly’s Blue Wednesday
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For Twiglet #88
Ivy Mum says ivy in moonlight isn’t the strangling beast that it is by day — not so, is what I say. It’s a summer-green sheet, a weep and leaf up the walls. It leans like a rickety trap, fills every leftover space with its nameless sag, and once planted, it’s forever. And Mum says…
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Where Do I Find…
Where Do I Find Inspiration … in the fragile and frayed, in the light and cool, in the whirl and gleaming infinities of you. In forest pines and rain fresh as a child’s eyes, in the tooth and the bone of a North Sea breeze. In young oak tree leaves, in a summer sunset, in…
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Off-Season for Miz Quickly
Winter at Fjellebroen Havn It clings. The ice is thick on the masts, thick in ropey skeins, and the riggings whine with the singing wind. Straight out of the north. It’s come. It’s lost. Diamond hard. It bites. Feels white as bone, this snow howling across our backs. The air is a carnival swirl. And…
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A Sestina for Miz Quickly
Battered Clouds Shallow grass of fluid green, flows broad, old river Narrow as shadows that slip between bridge and roots. So softly spoken as you drift, fall, these leaves That tumble everywhere, thirsty as the clear blue sky. You shape a daydream, of home, of battered clouds, Your right hand holds tight the last curls…
It's Still Life 