30th June 2019

extreme heat
mitigate by breeze
blackbird's song

© Rachel Green 2019

Morning News
with Lee
Don will meet Kim today
bestest buds.
Jeremy Hunt
"will break his promise to EU"
Woman stabbed to death in Croydon
baby delivered posthumously.
Electric cars to make sounds.
Glastonbury festival rocks.
The Cure tonight.
I saw them there in 1981
in the rain.

In weather: 16 degrees and partly sunny.

© Rachel Green 2019

29th June 2019

morning sunshine
comes with a cold wind
michaelmas daisies

© Rachel Green 2019

BBC News
with Lee and Alfie
Don and Kim Jong-Un
Bestest mates eva
American Neo Nazi
kills anti nazist
Stormsy
"Best Glastonbury Act ever"
Gay and Bi women
CAN get cervical cancer.
If you've got a cervix:
Get tested.
Glasgow Airport
going on strike.
Good for them.
Weather?
16 degrees with sun.
That's all for now.

© Rachel Green 2019

28th June 2019

overcast again
yesterday's heat
already a memory

© Rachel Green 2019

BBC news
with Lee Aldi
Purin dismisses UK poisoning
"not newsworthy"
Joe Biden and Bernie
still duking it out
as Democratic Candidates.
UK internet users
increas in their VPN use.
Government is watching.
iPhone inventor
leaves Apple for his own business.
Subcontracts to Apple.
in Weather
cloudy becoming sunny
may be hot.

© Rachel Green 2019

27th June 2019

cloudy sky
with the promise of sunshine
on another day

 © Rachel Green 2019

BBC News
with Andrew and Siobhan
Indian flight bomb threat
landed and Stanstead
turned out to be a hoax.
Hate crime doubles:
2000 cases this year
I can't think why.
Can you, Mr Farage?
Britain should accept migrants
educate and train them
and send them home to teach others.
Angela Merkle "is still well"
despite observed shaking
twice in the past week.
Heat wave across Europe
Paris bans 60% of car traffic
thanks to pollutants.
Mr Trump would prefer a Dalai Lama
that was "Female and Attractive."

© Rachel Green 2019

26th June 2019

raindrops
glistening on the front lawn
blackbird
 
 © Rachel Green 2019

In the eighties
I programmed a ZX Spectrum
to emulate a psychiatrist
by echoing back words
typed into an interface.
It couldn't help with mental problems
but it was a great way
to break down finite problems
like which girl I had a crush on
and which bully
was probably gay.

  © Rachel Green 2019

25th June 2018

yellow warning
for thunderstorms again
at least the rain is warm


 © Rachel Green 2019

BBC news
with Luke and Alfie
Boris is prepared for No Deal Brexit
but waffles on about it
(just don't mention the Incident
ab
out Domestic Dispute at his flat)
Mark and Megan
spend 2.5 million
udating their cottage.
oh! To be Royal.
Food regulations help allergy sufferers
by requiring all food contents
even in sandwich shops.
Dame Judi is losing her sight
but has people to help her
with her Lies.
Something about football
blah blah
weather.

 © Rachel Green 2019

24th June 2019

summer heat
mitigated by rain
thunderstorms

 © Rachel Green 2019

deckchair
at the end of a long, thin studio.
The smell of oil paint
drying in the freezing air
and the stink
of a paraffin heater.
Fimgerless gloves
and cold-reddened fingertips
manipulating ox hair brushes
moving paint
a carnival of abstract forms
trying to put a face
to the dread inside.

 © Rachel Green 2019

23rd June 2019

overcast again
the solor panels
barely registering

 © Rachel Green 2019

my father
appearing again
in a dream
this time he visits me
broken and downhearted.
I drop him at the station
then go to 'park the car'
and end up in Wolverhampton
unable to return
I feel his disappointment
as he leaves.

 © Rachel Green 2019

22nd June 2019

sunshine
on the blackberry blossom
white tailed bumblebees

© Rachel Green 2019

ancient cat
eats gravy and sleeps
rarely venturing out
into the sunlit garden.
She's more like a skeleton
onside a bag or fur
more beautiful than ever
in her end times

© Rachel Green 2019

21st June 2019

midsummer
but all we get are rainclouds
Boris Jonson

 © Rachel Green 2019

 what happened to free speech?
Trump throws out journalists
who ask questions he won't answer
or call attention to lies
and broken promises.
Now Mark Field
(Foreign Office minister)
manhandles and shoves a woman
who was peacefully protesting.
The government says it's okay
she asked for it by protesting.

© Rachel Green 2019

20th June 2019

morning sunshne
overpowered by cloud
solar farm

© Rachel Green 2019

tins of paint
to tart up the house
the kitchen looks dreadful
but too large a task for me.
I dab at the water damage
with some brilliant white
and hope for the best

© Rachel Green 2019

19th June 2019

rainy morning
a clutter of white clover
an unmown lawn

© Rachel Green 2019

morning
a cup of coffee
for a change from tea
(no milk means fewer calories)
so why do I need to defecate
before the cup is even done?
honestly,
I need the loo immediately.
Now I understand American love.
Coffee enema?

© Rachel Green 2019

18th June 2019

sunshine
on the marigolds
honeybees

© Rachel Green 2019


all the effort
in selling an item
to help my overdraft
destroyed
(and more)
ny an impulse purchase
for a grandchild.
In my defence
I'm not cluttering the house
with yet more rubbish.

© Rachel Green 2019

17th June 2019

grey and dreary
give me a nudge when summer starts?
cold June

© Rachel Green 2019

time to get rid
more books to go
the way of all things
and sold for pennies.
Anyone want poetry?
contemporary and historical
sigmed first editions
rare volumes
needful things?
I'll never read them again
so why keep them?

© Rachel Green 2019

16th June 2019

honeybees
making the best of a grey morning
twixt rainfalls

© Rachel Green 2019


grey avenue
leading to nowhere
but the cemetery
There used to be flowers here
and clean gutters
but the council made cuts
and the gutters are overgrown,
the flowerbeds grassed over.
Council land is sold off for profit
and the houses they build
"specifically for council tenants"
stand abandoned
before they were even used.
Nobody did a mining check
and built them over pockets
of carbon monoxide.

© Rachel Green 2019

15th June 2019

unshine
promising more damp weather
toadstool

© Rachel Green 2019

schoolyard terror
the dental van
where even kids in the sticks
can get their teeth checked
amongst the cans of fizzy pop
and Hobo wrappers
(eight for a penny)
The foul taste of gas and air
mixed with the stink of methylated spirits
as I go under.
My mother's hand
as I wake full of pain and terror
with all my teeth gone
and a mouthful of blood and wadding.

© Rachel Green 2019

14th June 2019

sparrows
drinking from the laden guttering
dark skies

© Rachel Green 2019


powering through the dark lanes
the bus' engine makes the floor vibrate
Saturday night.
Last bus home.
A disco in Redditch
and my eternal optimism
to find someone to love.
My hopes dashed again
though at least I got to talk to a girl
so I call that a win.
I hope Dad's in bed
by the time I've walked the mile
from the bus stop in Alvehurch.
Or will I again face the sarcasm
his ever-present humour
at my lonely expense.
I ring the bell
as we pass the now-closed chippy
and stumble forward
as the driver brakes.
The Red Lion is still lit.
Time for a last drink?
I can pass for eighteen.

© Rachel Green 2019

13th June 2019

sparrows
in a brief respite from rain
white-tailed bumblebees

 © Rachel Green 2019

more rain
Remember the rndless summers
of the seventies?
Walking home from school
in time to buy a Count Dracula lolly
from the ice-cream van on Callow Hill Road;
Mrs Morriss' farm
(now a housing estate)
and the scent of Mum's roses
by the garden gate?
The thrum of Dad's BSA
that sent Shane the dog
running to greet him from work
and the great calico coat he wore
to cut the hawthorn hedge around the orchard.
Baked treats on Fridays
fish and chips
because Mum was Catholic
and picking raspberries
fron the garden.

© Rachel Green 2019

12th June 2019

no photographs, please

almost midsummer
and we have the heating on
local river in flood

© Rachel Green 2019

the offspring
composes portmanteaus
accidentally
while on rants about YouTube users
and socaial commenters.
They talk in staccato.
Static Shouts
like an idling chainsaw
that makes the dog bark.
keeping to themselves
they become nocturnal
subsisting on alcohol and ice cream
while heavy curtains
give the upper storey room
a basement air.

© Rachel Green 2019

11th June 2019

wet and windy June
autumnal leaves blowing
what climate change?

© Rachel Green 2019

And that all is left
is my love for you
years of liveing, of raising kids;
from you becoming Mom
and changinging to Dad.
The lears, the laughter,
the easy-going smile
and the hug when things got too much.
You laughed at my garden wall
built of old mugs and saucepans,
each a perfect building block of concrete.
All those memories of stone
and in the terror of your future
your old girl in a chicken suit
still dancing to still you smile

© Rachel Green 2019

10th June 2019

 heavy sky
promises a downfall
English summer

 © Rachel Green 2019

birch logs
set aside for a Litha fire
farewell, favourite tree.
What now will mark
the site of my old dog'e grave
so many years of faithful love
now washed away by time.
He holds space in my memory
but soon,
I will be gone
and so will he,
Goodbye, old friend.

© Rachel Green 2019

9th June 2019

warmth
clouds edge out the sun
aching

© Rachel Green 2019

PM challengers
can just feck right off
we want social justice
please

© Rachel Green 2019

8th June 2019

morning rain
covering the grass
a fat pigeon

© Rachel Green 2019

sore nose
at least it's clean
showered and tape replaced
more blood, of course
tired of that, now.

© Rachel Green 2019

7th June 2019

cloudy skies
expecting rain
leggy cornflowers

© Rachel Green 2019

impulse purchase:
I can justify it for others
but not for myself.
The Reader’s Digest Book Of Folklore, Myths and Legends Of Britain
might be a seminal look at folk horror
but I'm trying to divest myself of books
not increase my collection.
The time has come for me to sell more
all those poetry books
and martial arts.
But maybe not the art books
still treasured
and not available digitally.

© Rachel Green 2019

6th June 2019

morning heat
burning away overnight rain
mooching dog

© Rachel Green 2019

afternoon visit
to the church of St Peter
in Hope valley.
we check each stone
Elliot, Eyre,
Hobson, Shallcross,
Septimus Allenenshaw
 and his son, Septimus,
all forgotton
with ivy over their graves.
Alas, we never found Reg and Kitty
aning the weathered markers
not even in the little cemetery
or the unlabelled woodland plots.

© Rachel Green 2019

5th June 2019

falling petals
an oriental poppy
hides its shame

 © Rachel Green 2019

paintings
stacked against the wall
in a dusty attic
all those dreams gone to dusk
where life was full of wonder
and fame just a footstep away.

© Rachel Green 2019

4th June 2019

unshine
the grass baked
flat light

© Rachel Green 2019

let's try something later
when my brain is awake
and my nose less dtuffed
with snot and congealed blood.
I'll walk the dogs,
bathe in the warm raid
and remember the scent of elderflower

© Rachel Green 2019

3rd June 2019

seed heads
drying in the sunshine
dream-soaked sheets

© Rachel Green 2019

Indian candidate
cries after election
with just six votes.
"I wouldn't mind," he said,
"but there a nine voters in my family."
Such a shame
Britain has voted for Fascism
once again.

© Rachel Green 2019

2nd June 2019

White-tailed bumblebbes
making a home in the pottery
a Michelin rating for the garden

© Rachel Green 2019

messaging a website
on a Sunday morning
but there's no reply.
Surely a bot would reply.
Do bots have undays off?
Do they pray to a Silicon god?
or do they just
Not Care?

© Rachel Green 2019

1st June 2019

unshine
anticipatory garden
shaken by wind

© Rachel Green 2019

lurgid bees
TV adaptation
of a personal favourite
shows Pratchett's influences
from the late seventies radio shows.

© Rachel Green 2019