bags of nuts
sorted into 100 calorie bags
twenty grammes each
© Rachel Green August 2026
stainless steel bowls
reflecting circular light
on sale at Lidl
and, coincidentally.
I often make round paintings
just not quite this small.
I've always had trouble
in framing round canvasses
Is this the answer?
I will find out.
© Rachel Green August 2026
Cookie poops
twenty yards after the last bin.
He won't go back.
© Rachel Green August 2026
There is some dog food
just outside the kitchen door
it's under green tarp
if the dogs are needing more
The magpies can't get in
its just a case of tins
Cookie doesn't like them
but in speechcraft they win
I try to feed them with
the food that's mostly meat
I can't afford the raw meat
that the dogs should really eat
Widget may turn her nose
up at the mushy stuff she gets
but add a little water
if the biscuits are not wet
It's only ten more days
and they'll see me again
they have no concept
of just waiting until then.
Maybe I will die out there
not destined to return
but if I don't come back
my paintings you must burn
This poem's darker now
I need it to be fun
so roast my memory
on bonfires in the sun.
© Rachel Green August 2026
heavy crop
withering before they ripen
dry summer
© Rachel Green August 2026
Sometimes
I talk to myself
just because I want to hear my opinion
sent out to the universe at large
and it makes sense to me.
Sometimes
I am composing sentences
for use when writing
and trying out how words will sound
when read by some AI voice.
Sometimes
I say the government is listening
and we both laugh
and then Alexa laughs
and the television laughs
And the next day
Amazon offers a tin sign
that says: "Sometimes
I talk to myself
then we both laugh."
© Rachel Green August 2026
spattered eggs
young lad horrified when I walk off
(fetching cleaner)
© Rachel Green August 2026
oil paintings
left in the garden to dry
dog prints
© Rachel Green August 2026
spattered paint
it might look random
it's not
© Rachel Green July 2026
Sally Shaw
played the recorder for me
on a school outing to Bath
and I took a photograph
with my old Box Brownie
with film you had to send
for processing in Dis.
I always thought that was in Hell:
I read Dante at seven
Aristotle at eight
and Paradise lost shortly after.
I once cycled eleven miles
to go to Sally's birthday party
although I wasn't invited
but her mum gave me a drink of lemonade
and a slice of strawberry sponge.
She's dead now;
killed in a road accident
when she was thirty-seven
but in the photograph I took
she'd still playing the recorder
and smiling.
© Rachel Green July 2026
portrait
of the former artist
as a lawn rake
© Rachel Green July 2026
Michael Moore
Michael (never Mike)
was probably the best carver I've ever met;
though he was just seventeen
he had innate talent;
drawing to stone
he was the Michelangelo
of Redditch college
and a beautiful young man
with the most perfect skin
I've ever peeled off.
© Rachel Green July 2026
weight gain
only half a pound
still a kicker
© Rachel Green July 2026
free range eggs
often misleading
my general go-to boxed eggs
claim free range but they're not:
the number stamped on them is 2
which means barn raised
with a peephole to the outside.
1 means free range but penned in
and 0 is proper back garden free range.
lets not talk about 3
because that's 'enhanced cage'
meaning that's a perch
in a cage the size of an i-pad
and should be banned in England.
© Rachel Green July 2026
