The Swan Boats

The swan boat pond a blue dye

In it's reflection, the ferris eye

A couple ride past on a tandem bike

Him in front, her behind

They look thirsty.

I wonder if they'll switch tonight.

We have become

Me at the radiator,
trivial pursuit over
in your eyes a glint of festive lights
in your chest a power cut
I couldn't get anything right -
even the correct answers
cause you had us breaking up
baggage stored away for weeks .

You broke the news
bedside manner foolproof
and breathe _shoulders relieved
your tears for us already in the rubbish tip
mine ready for the pile.

Your front door window pane
no longer a force for young eyes
that don't want to part.
No longer visiting hours ...

Heavy that night
The daylight cowered like me
I crawled in to bed
Put on my favourite Television show
one I knew would be ruined for a very long time.
The worst fear - us as strangers -
what we have become




I realised that year after year
 life is a series of goodbyes
and a reduction of fear
and in a year the worst fear
would be real. Us - strangers.

Dying Butterflies

I've never felt a warm gun on an empty stomach.

1

A rising lantern for desperate folks.

Paling handprints on boarded up windows 

D-Day for state supporters, a ring of racists

A wet dream for editors of gothic script papers

Years back, they started this.

2

Mowing down vital information, warning signs

Sugar-coated truth for the partially blind

Progression is rarely weighed up in traffic jams,

Campaigners binge watch enlightening programmes,

none of which institutionalise a compromise of freedom?

1 + 2

Falling for Westminster

Every night, the news at 10 -

Stomach simmers, dying butterflies

We are delivered a spent rhetoric. A loop.

Sample these dying butterflies.

Suits say they have a monopoly over our intentions...

Why. Do. They. Keep. Lying?