28th February 2019

beautiful clouds
backlit by morning sunshine
crow's silhouette

© Rachel Green 2019

 encouraged
to enter a weight loss competition
I decline
I haven't lost much
and I'm still twenty kilos
above my target weight.
I was tempted to make myself sick yesterday
but that way lies mental illness
and I have enough of that
already


© Rachel Green 2019

27th February 2019

morning frost
punctuated by crocuses
sunshine

© Rachel Green 2019

 Answering questions
of a police officer
about my late father
It's no surprise he died alone
no-one had seen him in months
and the electricity wasn't on.
A shadow on the floor
made by decomp and grave fats


© Rachel Green 2019

26th February 2019

sparrows
drinking from uneven guttering
still eating my seeds

© Rachel Green 2019

 tempus fugit, they say
but the night's dark seems endless
in the grip of fear.
Can a heart pound so heavily
it eats away at life?
one can only wonder
in the dread of night/


© Rachel Green 2019

25th February 2019

sparrows
eating the flower seeds I scattered.
shitbags.

© Rachel Green 2019

 growing slowly
at a snail's pace
five hundred words a day
crafted treatise
of a girl with issues
Are the demons all in her head?
The doctor thinks so


© Rachel Green 2019

24th February 2019

morning sun
the open bedroom window
birdsong


© Rachel Green 2019

 I still equate beautiful
with thin
despite a lifetime of being fat
and a double helping of body issues
I was thin, once,
before my brother died
and my mother
took the pharmaceuticals.
At least she dissuaded me
from a pacetetomol suicide.
All those tubes and stomach pumps
and she never did regain consciousness.
All for the loss of her little boy
while her teenage daughter cries
to the beep of a heart monitor.


© Rachel Green 2019 

23rd February 2019

lying awake at six
listening to the dawn chorus
slept through both alarms

© Rachel Green 2019

 I'll never forget
the way she looked at me
as she fell from the overhang
a look of betrayal
loss
astonishment
despair.
I'm haunted by it still
though it's a better image
than when I saw her next
after she'd smashed her face
on the rocks below.


© Rachel Green 2019

22nd February 2019

purple crocus
stretching long necks to the sun
homecoming geese

© Rachel Green 2019

Night At the Crown

 she was all right
a seven in a bar full of fours
used to come-ons and flirting
and the Art of Pulling a Pint.
Arms like Popeye
and a face to launch
a canal barge, at least,
maybe a fishing vessel
at a pinch
(and a pinch is what she gave
to the few men she fancied)
I was sixteen, looked nineteen,
and in love with her
She taught me how to bring her pleasure
among the empty kegs in the cellar
and gave me a lifelong fetish
for an anchor tattoo.
© Rachel Green 2019

21st February 2019

sparrows
on a telephone wire
rain drop symphony


© Rachel Green 2019

Third Fight

I don't remember

what our fight was about

dissatisfaction with the relationship

stagnation over the proximity

or the fact I was away all week

fingerbanging the girls from the art school

(or so you believed).

I recall we were in the park

(or maybe the cemetery)

a bench, anyway,

with you in your winter coat and scarf

and me in my motorcycle leathers.

You walked off,

home to your mother's

or to your friend Jude's.

I went back to Wolverhampton

where the parties went on all night

and smoked a joint on the tower block roof.

© Rachel Green May 2017

20th February 2019

scattering poppy seeds
across the bare earth
fresh daffodils

© Rachel Green 2019

old lady
pushing a bicycle
warns me of the cliff edge
and the prevalance of violent men.
A body found below the cliff
leaves a long shadow of fear.
We all have our demons, she says,
looking over my shoulder.
© Rachel Green 2019

19th February 2019

sunshine warmth

on the cold earth
a mistlethrush

© Rachel Green 2019

Laverstone
Never thought I'd be back
after the hospital stay
and the conversion therapy.
I thought that was banned now?
At least I'm an adult now.
I can avoid psychiatric care
so long as I'm not a danger to anyone
or myself, obvs.
I don't remember killing Angela
Even though they said I did
and besides
it was ruled 'accidental'
I haven't driven since.

© Rachel Green 2019

18th February 2019

warmth
encouraging leafy growth
the dog, peeing

© Rachel Green 2019

sudden illness
overtakes the household
stay away
all you young dudes
a minor spill
from the research laboratory
on the outskirts of town
toxic gas
among the student housing
Thank the Gods
is was nobody important
and we can label it
'a tragic gas leak'
and blame it
on a faulty stove

© Rachel Green 2019

17th February 2019

sparrows
fighting over scraps
deadly peck


© Rachel Green 2019


orange beak
dipping into soil
bounce bounce
is it raining yet?
pulling away dead leaves
the prospect of the Great Reveal


© Rachel Green 2019

16th February 2019

birdsong
leaing the way into morning
my nightmares

© Rachel Green 2019

a loose dog
lopes along the highway
resisting offers of help
lifts from kindly strangers
offers of food.
Where is he going
 with such determination
a sense of purpose
as he lopes along the verge
brushing through the ragwort
and the hedge parsley
on a mission
© Rachel Green 2019

15th February 2019

morning sun
burning away the frost
the heat of dog's paws

© Rachel Green 2019

 it took a while
kicking through leaves
trying to recognise a particular tree
after ten years of growth
in a chunk of forest next to the A6134
but she found it
more by luck than judgement
and the skin of a grazed knee.
Shifting stones
while her partner reels off facts
about stages of decomposition
he learned from watching CSI
and Silent Witness.
And in the end he might be right:
there's nothing left there at all
not even bones or skin
but there's still a chance
the body
was resurrected
after all.

© Rachel Green 2019

14th Fevruary 2019

sacrificial roses
line the petrol station forecourt
semi-naked boys

© Rachel Green 2019

a good chunk
of text about guilt
instilled by the church
in an effort to control.
Sermons about hellfire
and the bliss of Heaven
God's good ol' carrot and stick
making people hate everyone else
since written memory began
© Rachel Green 2019

13th February 2019

snowdrops
peering from the undergrowth
broken glass

© Rachel Green 2019



how much of your skin
is salvageable?
a few inches?
square feet?
a full yard?
Enough to cover a canvas
that I might paint a memorium
to your decaying corpse?
Those surgical scars
would make fine anchorpoints
and the tattoos blush neatly
beneath the titanium white.




© Rachel Green 2019

12th February 2019

Chesterfield gull
in a mid-air fight
angry crow

© Rachel Green 2019

a promise to the future

scattering flower seeds

along the border,

The lupins on the M5

scattered by my father

when he stopped to help

someone. Anyone.

a paper bag full of seeds

collected from his garden.

It brings me joy

to pass a bank of lupins in full bloom.

You still make me smile, Dad.

© Rachel Green 2019

11th February 2019

Childhood pets c1973

zombies
shuffling past the window
school pupils

© Rachel Green 2019

compost bin
full of activity
in the unseasonable warmth
worms devouring tea bags and apple cores
banana peel and peanut shells
but the magpie head
waiting to be defleshed
is still intact

© Rachel Green 2019

10th February 2019

sparrows
flashing past rain-streaked windows
Lu's filthy Mercedes

© Rachel Green 2019

I tried to care
but you wanted nothing more.
I became your Hitler
your Marie Antoinette
your Ann Frank,
collecting the hateful cards
you sent every day.
Honestly, after the the third
I stopped opening them
(they were probably a crime)
and just collected them all
in a large brown envelope
and when they stopped
(was  it a month? six weeks? a quarter?)
sent them all back to you
unopened
with just a single note:
"Here's your mail art project
fuck you."


© Rachel Green 2019

9th February 2019

dry leaves
skittering along the path
garden chairs

© Rachel Green 2019

she sees herself
on the other side of the lake
walking through ryegrass
brushing away flies
and the spider's webs
dangling from the willow branches.
Is this the future or the past?
ripples in the water
offer no clue to the time of day
or time of life
jeans, shoes, tee-shirt
a small overhang of belly...
She could be forty or sixty


© Rachel Green 2019

8th February 2019

"climatically challenging"
my new expression for cold, wet and blustery
Winterfilth*

© Rachel Green 2019

She relives the past
endlessly blaming the man she loved
for breaking her heart.
No-one else survives her 
everyone leaves
one after another
unable to compete with her lost love
(who loved her, still
until she threw him out)
and the rain drips down the windows
blown through the gaps
between glass and lead
until you can't tell which rain
and which are tears.

© Rachel Green 2019






*The tenth month in the Shire calendar, according to Tolkien

7th February 2019

freezing rain
blown by wild winds
my CPU

© Rachel Green 2019

am I still a peot
if I don't write poems?
my heart still sings
with the joy of snowdrops
and a vase of supermarket tulips
even if I don't write down
my anguish and despair
trying to cope
when the world is off-kilter

© Rachel Green 2019

6th February 2019

morning sunlight
warming my cold, cold feet
 faithful dog

© Rachel Green 2019

silent computer
the keyboard dusty
on a desk with the detritus
of monkey nuts
orange and banana peel
and coupons for money off
items I will never buy.
Jotted notes for novels
and games I used to play
vitimin pills untaken
and the faint scent of patchouli
that I never wore

© Rachel Green 2019

5th February 2019

heavy frost
made beautiful by the sun
garden rubbish

© Rachel Green 2019

lifelong friends
showing their phobias
I lost all of mine when I transitioned
and now he's losing his
I know how he feels
but there's nothing I can do
but offer a shoulder

© Rachel Green 2019

4th February 2019

tangled clouds
in the TV aerial
a chaffinch

© Rachel Green 2019

Thing I don't want to do
part 17

I don't want to come to your funeral
despite the time we had together
(seven years feels longer than it was -
enough to witness your indifference
and casual cruelty)
and you left me long before
we parted ways
I wasn't as stupid as you thought
or as accepting of your trysts
and is it any wonder I gave up dancing?)
so stick your dying wish
where the sun doesn't shine

© Rachel Green 2019

3rd Fenruary 2019

pink tinted clouds
limned by frost
the cat's whiskers

© Rachel Green 2019

Sunday morning
in the middle of England
Below freezing
and thick ice on the windows
but no heating
because the landlady has a lie-in on Sundays
and anyway,
people should be at church
but I'm an atheist
and a cold one at that
and the heating control
is in someone else's bedroom

© Rachel Green 2019

2nd February 2019

blue sky
reflecting from frozen snow
sunshine

© Rachel Green 2019

mornings
not the best time
to write poetry.
I used to be better
(I used to work harder)
now not so much
and there are people about
competing for my head space
and the dog wants walking
tum-te-tum tum

© Rachel Green 2019

1st February 2019

Imbolc
swept in by a gale
flakes of frozen ice

© Rachel Green 2019

a slice of cherry cake
on the front step.
It can't have been here long
else the cat would have pinched it
or a passing dog, or fox.
Why would someone leave her cherry cake
wrapped in a piece of tin foil?
Is it laced with something?
poison? drugs? razor blades?
You can't trust a gift horse these days
not like when she was a kid
when every housewife would give you biscuits
if you knocked on their door for water
and the telly gave you non-stop messages
promoting xenophobia,
homophobia
europe-phobia
and broadcast warning films
about foot-and-mouth
and rabies.
She eats the cake with a cup of tea
and thinks about her dead sister.

© Rachel Green 2019