These shattered hearts
And battered minds
We set apart
And set upon
We danced before
The dying sun
We laughed as though
We'd just begun
To start to start
And play the part
Plying apart
The shuttered blinds
And shattered minds
Oh how all the shadows leer
Oh aren't we all standing near

Floret
flourish
final hour
pouring
roaring
taste the
flour
ground down
count down
go down
fighting
hugging
bugging
telephoning
sing to
silent
ears.

She was the daughter of a painter

Jess on a canvas

Down the lane

Beneath the sparrows

Haunting windows

And the pockmarked underbellies

Of so much neglected spouting

Life was a canvas

Of opportunities gone

As though at birth a perfect picture

Crisp and glowing

Add life, like turps

Tear drops of colour

Washed into the pavement

By relentless grey rain

She was the daughter of a painter

But she strayed into photography

Black, white, greyscale.

“It tells it like it is” She says.

Though the party hats have gone
And the candles' burned away, and
Birthday cake ashes on second-best plates
Laughter subside to next door
Where it's pin the smile on the faces

She could stare down the memories
Things will be different next time
Better... brighter...!
But the brightest candles burn the fastest.

Inching up the mountain
Tumbling down again
The same old toe hold

The tree by the wishing well
Hunkers like an old man
Fishing corroded coins
With great gnarled fingers
Some days he shivers
Through the not-so-gentle balding
As autumn plucks his hair
And I wish to
Wrap him in a blanket
And his hands round a mug of tea.