31st August 2018

fading sunshine
limns the oaks in gold
flashing pipistrels

© Rachel Green 2018

exercise session
with a very fit daughter
aching back
I was doing something wrong
or I wouldn't be in pain now
stretching out.
Listening to tales
of a lady we know well
selling soiled knickers online
quite a business there
in what i thought
was a rare fetish
but I think rain is wet
so who am I to judge?

© Rachel Green 2018

30th August 2018

cloud-diffused sunshine
by the side of the local pond
picking sloes

© Rachel Green 2018

his birthday
The only bloke I will ever love
turns fifty (again)

© Rachel Green 2018

29th August 2018

sunshine behind the clouds
the whine of the bin lorry
pruned buddleias

© Rachel Green 2018

late lavender flowers
a single honeybee collects nectar
under a cloud wracked sky.
In the cardboard box
the cat lies in wait for the dogs to pass
flexing claws.
Is it any wonder
the dogs are scared of her?

© Rachel Green 2018

28th August 2018

overcast again
the dry patches on the lawn
slowly greening

© Rachel Green 2018

sometimes
it feels like all the writing
has been sapped out of me.
Where is the passion I used to have
the telling of stories
the dream of success?
All gone now
These days its a struggle to stay healthy
and keep smiling at the world.
All I want to do
is leave a beautiful corpse.

© Rachel Green 2018

27th August 2018

bank holiday
another rainy morning
falling acorns

© Rachel Green 2018

training steps up
eight weeks to a half-marathon
fitness comes first.
How the hell do I manage this?
determination
courage
foot cream

© Rachel Green 2018

26th August 2018

morning rain
dripping from ripening apples
distant thunder

© Rachel Green 2018
A friend
talks about a school reunion
the people she still knows
or can find on Facebook.
None of my classmates
can be found by Google
though most were bullies or,
like me, recipients of bullying.
Am I the only one of my class
to be computer literate?
Or am I the only one who survived?
Even my fellow artists
from the studio in Wolverhampton
are long dead, or offline,
even the ones I loved
(especially the ones I loved)
would rather leave me be.

© Rachel Green 2018

25th August 2018

autumnal air
the changing season
dog farts

© Rachel Green 2018

He'd have been ninety today
if he hadn't retired at sixty
to concentrate on his garden
and immediately became disabled.
Happy birthday, dad,
I'm thinking of you
and I wonder if my memories
are better than the reality.
Would you like the person I am?
or would you have disowned me
in despair of ,my life choices?

© Rachel Green 2018

24th August 2018

sunny afternoon
fresh plums from the garden
eighty calories each

© Rachel Green 2018

subtle differences
make for a pleasant walk
No dogs today, that's a relief
less barking from mine,
who are terrified of other dogs
turning leaves --
is it too early?
Shrivelled blackberries;
I made no wine or jam this year
it seems such a waste of bounty
Elderberries darken.
Remember the ones we picked
on our way to Devon that year?
I still have the jam,
sweet and runny
best for porridge and hot drinks
like Mum used to make.

© Rachel Green 2018

23rd August 2018

gulls
calling from chimney

pots
indignant crows

© Rachel Green 2018

broken dreams
the anxiety of rubbish removal
as I clear the old garden
where parts of my father's house
fall into the ruin
of a new-to-me semi
while the neighbours borrow my drone
to see the outlines of a medieval fort
their girls' hair
caught up in the rotors.
The binmen don't take the rubbish
"not their job" apparently
so I'll have to dig a huge hole
and make a midden heap

© Rachel Green 2018

22nd August 2018

on the widowsill
a fresh-picked apple
slowly rotting

© Rachel Green 2018

rectangular bales
tied with nylon twine
Lego brick the wheat fields.
Walking the edge,
where the green footpath  sign
points toward Rowney Green
my childhood fades into memory
where the coal black crows
glean for summer's bounty
discarded ears of wheat
and combine-sliced field mice
to please the hungry palate.
In the hedgerow
elderberries hang heavy and red
hinting at a harsh winter
and an end to glory

© Rachel Green 2018

21st August 2018

weak sunshine
the gerbil throws poo at me
garden-fresh plums

© Rachel Green 2018
I attend a session
of Krav Maga
and decide to stay.
I love jiu-jitsu
but remembering all the defences
takes a lot of practice.
Now I know one simple defence
that works in most cases
and I'm hooked.

© Rachel Green 2018

20th August 2018

"mostly sunny"
except wherever you are right now
swifts take flight

© Rachel Green 2018

the annoyance
of a free trial razor
that leaves me covered in blood
It's not ladylike to go out
covered in scars and scabs
so they tell me
Best take up self defence again
before the cat notices I'm a target/

© Rachel Green 2018

19th August 2018

damp
raindrops on unripe plums
dead guinea pig

© Rachel Green 2018

I won't wake you.
I'll just collect my things while you sleep
my mobile phone,
my knickers, that smell of the sex you initiated;
my tablets,
my self esteem,
my hair from the pillow where you held me down
my blood from the sheet
my house key, my love,
my broken heart

© Rachel Green 2018

18th August 2018

grey clouds
limned with summer sun
cold morning

© Rachel Green 2018

5:30 AM
woken by a dog barking
through the open window.
Comforting, almost,
a childhood spent in the country
where foxes and badgers
would wander through the garden
and owls would call
from the tree outside my bedroom
and my father's angry "put that light out"
ere the electricity bill rose too high.
Only afterwards
did I recognise the bark
and realise it was my dog
barking at the dog star
and feeling very pleased with himself

© Rachel Green 2018

17th August 2018

morning pigeons
shouting down the chimneypots
first garden plums

© Rachel Green 2018

again with the poems
didn't I write one
just yesterday?
I'm more concerned with aching limbs
and that's just from yoga,
never mind the HIIT session
I'm attending this morning.
So fuck poetry.
I'm selling all my books.

© Rachel Green 2018

16th August 2018

ripening plums
the tree in the back garden
in the rain

© Rachel Green 2018

stories
left on the shelf
remnants of childhood;
of an earlier self.
Do I need that signed pTerry
or that monogrammed Beckett?
I'll never read the paper copies again
e-books are my future
Armageddon forgiving, of course,
but I'll be dead then, anyway,
so why would I care about books?
Am I still a writer?
My tagline claims so.

© Rachel Green 2018

15th August 2018

enough blue sky
to knit a sailor suit for teatime
summer receding

© Rachel Green 2018

so tired
can't poem today
many words, small brain
gym workout soon
happy dogs

© Rachel Green 2018

14th August 2018

bin day
the wind kick cardboard boxes
small boy troubles

© Rachel Green 2018

the cat knocks over my shit
books, birthday cards,
those little figures made of string
that people give me
because one made them think of me
and was only a pound;
my jar of paintbrushes
my fruit bowl
my dog.
She doesn't care.
Just looks me in the eye
and extends a paw.

© Rachel Green 2018

13th August 2018

brambles
scattering fresh berries
wild arum

© Rachel Green 2018

some trepidation
about to be rid of more books
I don't need poetry

© Rachel Green 2018

12th August 2018

blessed rain
just in the for son's barbeque
birthday greetings

© Rachel Green 2018

ritual
tapping into the primal
elements of fire, of earth.
the fractured bones of chickens
turned to white ash
threaded through the fabric
connecting to the people who came before
and those who come after.
The dirt beneath our fingernails
as ancient as the bones of the earth
and new as fallen leafmould.
High Tor

© Rachel Green 2018

11th August 2018

the birth of clouds
in a blue, blue sky
contrails

© Rachel Green 2018

honestly?
I have no words in me
to share with anyone.
I am content with my life
(but for a lack of money)
and at this stage
I want to leave a decent corpse
for the medical students.
© Rachel Green 2018

10th August 2018

lavender shadows
where the cat shits on the lawn
summer flies

© Rachel Green 2018

fuck me,
the world's gone to shit.
If you're not white cis
you're the problem, it seems.
Well fuck that.
I'd rather have diversity
that Christian Phobias

© Rachel Green 2018

9th August 2018

dry spell
the straggly seedheads of ryegrass
evading the mower blades

© Rachel Green 2018

I used to break into houses
Empty ones, ones being built
where they thought an unglazed door
could keep people out.
I wandered through your bedroom
masturbated where your bathroom would be
wrote my name in tiny letters
on the edge of floorboards not nailed down
and stole a piece of copper pipe
to make a ball bearing cannon
using gunpowder and matchtip sulphur
from last years leftover fireworks.

© Rachel Green 2018

8th August 2018

passing clouds
stripping away the morning cool
heating water

© Rachel Green 2018

with each passing birthday
I can't help but wonder
of all those I went to school with
who is still alive?
I know a couple are dead
but google and facebook offer no clue
to most of the others.
Even exs are strangely absent
though I found one on Faceache
but she didn't respond to me.
I can't be the only one of my generation
to embrace social media,
can I?

© Rachel Green 2018

7th August 2018

clouds
reducing the August heat
blackberries

© Rachel Green 2018

sweat dripping
my tee shirt soaked
spinning

© Rachel Green 2018

6th August 2018

overcast
the ragged feel of the lawns
uncut

© Rachel Green 2018

the invitation
returned, undelivered,
no longer at this address.
I look him up online
to find an obituary.
he died last year,
the victim of a garden accident
involving a bonfire
and I laugh and laugh
despite the trauma  his daughters must have felt
I didn't like him anyway.

© Rachel Green 2018

5th August 2018

clear skies
guiding our way home
the crescent moon

© Rachel Green 2018

several hours
attending a wedding
under the Pembrokeshire sun
(where herds of roving corgis aren't)
leaves me red raw with sunburn
a grand affair
where I give my blessings with advice:
what would Jasfoup do?

© Rachel Green 2018

3rd August 2018

cooler
among the stalks of seeding grass
poisonous ragwort

© Rachel Green 2018

She didn't want it,
this burden, this problem,
but if there's no one else willing,
what else can she do?
One sister lives miles away
the other wants nothing to do with it
and their father needs constant care.
So she rolls up her sleeves
and cleans the shit from the floors, the walls;
he can't help it
he has no control anymore
but he tries to reach the bathroom.
one sister visits at weekends; tries to help;
the other makes lists
of what she wants when he dies
tries to squeeze out an extra grand
by claiming their mother's jewellry
before he dies.

© Rachel Green 2018

2nd August 2018

nubilous sky
spots of orange in the undergrowth
ripening arum

© Rachel Green 2018

why the dreams
about unfinished homework?
I've not been at college
in thirty years or more
A subtle hint from my brain
that time is running out?
I need to get this last manuscript
into a publishable state
before I shuffle off.
A least I lost a couple of pounds
maybe the diet
will save the heroine

© Rachel Green 2018

1st August 2018

sullen clouds
let through a swarm of sun motes
instant cheer

© Rachel Green 2018

painting
a new portrait
shattered colours

© Rachel Green 2018