Tuesdays in February
Distracted, I stare blankly out the window-
The frosted glass obscures
The view I'm not even looking at.
People pass by, their own lives busying them,
Lock-step with their distractions
Not looking in at me looking out.
Heads down, hands shoved angrily in pockets
Filled with coins and tissues and their own business
Which I know nothing about.
I dream of their lives, are they better than mine?
What drives them through the streets?
What lunchtime errands make them brave the elements
On a cold Tuesday in February?
Lost among my wonderings, I conjure myriad
Scenarios of spies and assassins,
and tradesmen and ladies-in-waiting.
Of lives of others, with jet-setting and expense accounts,
and poverty-stricken urchins begging for scraps.
The world passes by my window,
and every step a story, and
Every bowed head no more than
a collection of memories.
Why do storms have names?
Why do storms have names?
Why do we need to personalise them?
To make them our friends?
They blow in...and blow us away.
They uproot our trees and capsize our trampolines
And knock down our wheelie bins
They are not our friends
When they blow our cars off course and
The trees land in our living rooms
And in our roads on our way to work.
Dudley and Eunice and Franklin
Came round this week like visitors round for tea.
I haven't had this many people round for two years.
Huffing and puffing and trying to blow the house down
But the last couple of years
Have given my house of straw a bricked-up base
And I weather these storms
And their names.
Council Estates
Building sites and welfare checks
Put a fiver in the lecky
Jumpers for goalposts
Tyre swings on the big oak tree
Stinging nettles and docking leaves
Bee stings and a dab of vinegar
Shinning up the lampposts
Scraped knees and torn jeans
Out too late sitting on kerbs
Conversations long forgotten
Curfews were 'when it gets dark'
And mornings were lazily slept through.
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