31st July 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

30th 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

29th 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

 

28th July 2026

 

dieting

breaking one habit at a time.

Cheese...bread...

© Rachel Green July 2026

five years, I wasted at art school;

not because it was art school

but because I had access

to free, all-day life models

and I could have been an awful lot better

than I am now.

My advice to artists:

draw the figure; every chance you get

and rejoice.

© Rachel Green July 2026

27th July 2026

 

fat free yoghurt

With a spoonful of red jam

stomach ache

© Rachel Green July 2026

I’m offered a free costume

to try out and review

an adult pirate's costume.

It might be okay for kids

to dress up as the bad guys:

I've seen young Darth Vaders,

vampires, werewolves;

supervillains were the rage when I was a kid:

Harley Quinn, The Joker and so on,

but as an adult? No.

There's nothing romantic about pirates:

bloodthirsty bastards who would cut your throat

for the small change in your pocket.

If I wanted to be a pirate

I'd just wait outside Sainsburys

and stab the first person with a full trolley

and take off in their Volvo estate.

© Rachel Green July 2026

26th July 2026

 

morning rain

unnoticed and brief

gone with the sun

© Rachel Green July 2026

Fly Trap

my old one died; 

the fan sucking in the nightcrawlers;

the gnats and mosquitoes--

clattering to wake the dead.

thus another

this one cheap enough

but without the sucking fan

and woke me in the night

with BANG! CRACKLE! HISS! BANG!

and the stink of burning carapace

until the dogs ran in terror

while I thought the local substation had exploded

and the house would catch fire.

I sent it back. Please

may I have a refund?

© Rachel Green July 2026

25th July 2026

 

loud crackles

and the stink of burning insect

terrified dogs

© Rachel Green July 2026

Poison Garden

I still grow nightshade;

hemlock, monk's hood -- 

though my angel toadstools never grew

and I pull out the ivy before the dogs lie.

My cuckoo pints are spreading slowly

ladies in the spring, red shirted soldiers in the autumn

and my scattered seeds of foxgloves

are beloved by the bees.

© Rachel Green July 2026