Spiderman Fingers

A Spidey suit
and a new comic
as a birthday treat.
All day Spiderman
zoomed around the house
climbing the walls (with the aid of a chair)
and shooting nets
from his pump-action wrist guns
until they were lost
between the raspberries
and the rhubarb trees.

Birthday teas
were jelly and ice cream and chocolate fingers
but not for spidermen
who didn’t wash their hands.

“What do you mean,
Spidermen don’t eat chocolate fingers?
I’m not a spiderman really,
I’m just me.”

Chesterfield Flea Market

No need to buy -
Blackpool cruet,
Just like Ada has.


Old tin buckets
just the thing
for kicking

The wash basket was £10 -

too steep for my meager pocket.

Ad-hoc assemblages
better than any
gallery of art.

Tin bath too much
for Bear's taste.
Hosepipe suffices.




Literary guerrillas --
An Ungodly Child
ordered, bought and left on the shelves.

Canine Love

Instant infatuation
as I browse the gardening section
of Wilkinson’s
my fingers fluttering
over new season surprises.

No money to buy the brushwood screen
I coveted last year
and went to buy
the week it went out of stock.

No money to embrace
half a wall stacked with fruiting shrubs,
perennials, annuals,
seeds and summer bulbs.

No money to buy—
wait! A canine sculpture
in copper and steel
with droopy ears
and waggy tail
(on a spring)
and nodding head
(ibid)
and pointy nose
and four little feet
and polished toes

I could hardly contain my glee
I had to buy him – he was just so me
One of a kind and ten pounds to pay
I’ll skimp on the dinner just for today.

St Mary and All Saints Church

Turn it Off!

Nightkin Day

Snow blankets the scented garden
building up on shrubs and trees
Soil freezes, berries harden
hard to live in times like these.

Stirred from sleep by meager bedding
Nightkin blinks in light of days -
burrows under eaves while shedding
precious fats to winter’s gaze.

Under shelter of the steeple
where the snow has drifted in
evidence of human people
footprints of the bigger kin.

Here he finds discarded tissue
serviette and biscuit crumb
winter cold no more an issue
Nightkin curls in dreamer’s numb.

Last few of Whitby

Night
Harbour and beach
The sea takes its own

The Curious Little Demon Who Sat on My Bannister, ‘Til Two

As I travelled to my bed
I met the oddest fellow, red,
who looked at me with splintered eyes
and asked if I was in disguise.
I said: “Of course I’m not in drag,
do you perceive some filthy hag
to be conversing on the stair?”
He shrugged as if he didn’t care.
“I though you just a foreign chap,”
he said and pulled a felted cap
from a pocket lost from view
“Have you travelled from Peru?”
I said, “You seem a little chilled. Are you?
“A bit,” he said. (His teeth were bared.)
“Aren’t you just a little scared?”
“A bit,” I said, “When I’m in bed
“I’ll wrap the duvet round my head.”
“It’s time,” he said “I heard the bell.
“I guess we’ll meet again…

…in Hell”

Cemetery and Dog Field with DK

Pleasant walk
with pleasant company.
Birdsong and sunshine

The Painter’s Vision

“Use red for the eyes,” she said, “use red,”
and peered from my shoulder “She’s one of the dead
that haunt the building on Old Carver’s Lane –
Have you felt her cold hands; have your seen her again?”

I told her to hush and gave her a stroke
and tickled her feathers and fed her a roke.
“She’s no more dead than you are, or I,
I’ve not spoken to her but tomorrow I’ll try.”

“You’ll try and you’ll fail,” she said, grooming her tail,
“She’ll open her mouth but her voice has gone stale.
Stick with your figurines, paint four or five
and leave the drowned women for those still alive.”

“Are you saying I’m dead?” I cried with alarm;
“These words that you speak will do nothing but harm.”
“I’m fit as a flea and alive as a herring
I’ll thank you to keep your own thoughts for un-sharing.”

“Of course you are fit,” she replied with a sigh.
“I said it before as the centuries rolled by.
You perfected your art by light of the day
but you shy from the truth, Mister Dorian Gray.”

Shop Window

Demon heads
to the left of the handle
I dare not go in
for I cannot afford
to make a purchase
and if I see them up close
they will call to me:

"Rachel," they call,
"Take us home."

For Susan

Single yellow rose

represents my friendship and
the joy you bring me

Just one,
so don’t get too comfortable --
it’s not a bunch.

Whitby Abbey, St. Mary's Church

Everything closed.
Perhaps I'll take some
better shots next time
(In the light)

To Rest Awhile

To see a little of the world
and rest awile
for then,
when celebrations
tread a final mile
what can be done
but sit and smile.

Rowsley Tor

That stand of trees on the hill is a pretty special place to us. When you're up there it feels like the whole world is revolving around you.

Bridge over the
river Derwent
at Rowsley

Someone lost their cuddly lion :(

Embers

A pardon
for all the sins
and the blood
and the stillborn children
cast to a sodden grave.

It wasn’t much to ask
of a priest
and a bishop
and a holy man on a horse
but they turned away.

And as the fire seared her flesh
but before the smoke suffocated her
she forgave them.

And the village died
for want of a midwife
and a doctor
and a voice to tell them
when to plant the seeds.

Whitby Abbey

Just as the sun falls
A flock of birds wheel and dive
Blue afternoons

Aunt Lydia's Drawing Room

I felt
discomfited
by the visit
to my lover’s Aunt
for over the mantle
a piece of Art
(with capital) --
A portrait of her mother
executed
in oils and hemp;
one foot
painted in the style
to make it twitch
the final danse macabre.

Scarborough - Beach

Winter Paths

Scarborough - Beach Huts

A delight for the eyes -
gaily painted beach huts
cheer January skies.