"Sleepy Joe?"
Why aren't we normalising
"Diaper Don?"
© Rachel Green August 2026
Everyone Knows
Rupert can't act
so what was he to do
but reprise his childhood role;
it's less a question of supporting
a transphobic rhetoric
and more the solution
of Grint being skint.
He's very good
at playing a gormless idiot;
he's a method actor
but that doesn't equate to adult roles;
just teen dramatisation.
© Rachel Green August 2026
glacial collapse
brings floods and terror
eight hundred dead
© Rachel Green August 2026
torrential rain
cleaning all the streets
of summer's debris
leaves and tin cans filling the drains
blocking up sewers pipes,
eroding heat-dried river banks.
Seven Trent Water
realise all the pipes are broken
"Let's raise the price of rain."
© Rachel Green August 2026
empty house
the lad across the road watching
as I hide the key
© Rachel Green August 2026
woodland walk
and it smells of autumn
all the leases are falling early
and the apples are already ripe.
the plums all fell
devoured by garden wasps
while the garden arums
display their guardsman finery
© Rachel Green August 2026
when I said 'moobs'
I meant I was depressed,
not man boobs
© Rachel Green August 2026
An Apology
Once again, I have fubar'd;
fucked up your ordered shelves
in the tiny freezer-for-four
because the shopping list
included oven chips and broccoli
and the vegetables drawer
was already full.
So the chips are in the meat drawer
with the chicken and burgers
(and sausages, though they don't count as meat)
and the broccoli
is with the sweet stuff
because everybody loves
to suck on frozen broccoli,
don't they?
© Rachel Green August 2026
*Note to Self*
my next protagonist's name:
Vermillion Payne
© Rachel Green August 2026
Payne's Blue
She lives
in a time when the world is ending
or perhaps just beginning;
or perhaps it's her end, or beginning.
She changed her name
because 'Vermillion' was too cruel:
her mother forgot that kids make nicknames
and hers shortened to 'Vermin'
which shortened to 'Rat'
so when she went to college
she made a deed poll
and became
(dammit I forgot)
© Rachel Green August 2026
sloppy dog poo
scraped into bags
hands wiped on grass
© Rachel Green August 2026
The church bells chime,
the services are said
but communal guilt has moved to the corporations
for they are the new city states,
to be smitten by God, or social media,
if they do not purge themselves of sin
of the mistimed facebook post of an employee.
Place now the ills of society
on the public at large,
for it is not the fault of companies
who produce the billion tons of plastic waste
but of the consumers who fail to recycle the bottles
because thousand-year plastic is cheaper
than collecting and washing a glass bottle.
There are fewer burnings now
but there are more P45s.
God’s will is being done,
just by someone else.
Maybe.
© Rachel Green August 2026
picture frames
from the second-hand shop.
cheaper than making
© Rachel Green August 2026
Home
is where the heart is;
but mine is split
between England and France
and right now I'm in England
and my loves are both distant
so my artistic nature is blocked
because I just miss them so.
© Rachel Green August 2026
