27th July 2024

 

hazy cloud

fermenting for the future

gooseberry wine

© Rachel Green July 2024

detailed notes

of everything passing my lips

giving the illusion of control.

I've forgotten what cheese tastes like;

milk, bread and butter;

the simple pleasures of fat and sugar.

It's the price of a sedentary lifestyle:

if I worked all day in the fields or the arena

I could eat whatever I could get

but a scribe gets fat easily

and the weight is hard to shed.

Oh! for a demonic pact to sign

to repair the damage of a lifetime.

© Rachel Green July 2024

26th July 2024

 

2AM barking

an ambulance outside

neighbour's heart

© Rachel Green July 2024

immortal as teenagers

we free-climbed buildings

high-wired bridges over heavy traffic

used railway lines as shortcuts

engaged in sex without precautions.

Death was for other people

and freedom meant the choice to live now

and not worry about the future

because Reagan and Gorbachev

were old men with older grudges

and hiding under a table

wouldn't save you from the bombs

© Rachel Green July 2024

25th July 2024

 

swearing

on the early-morning street

drunken arsehole

© Rachel Green July 2024

nicotine

a long-ago memory.

Last time I smoked,

a pack of twenty was a two quid

and now are fifteen, sixteen pounds or more.

I couldn't afford them now

but at least when I smoked I was thin;

a trade-off between nicotine and food

that lead to weight and heart disease

and my inability to do cartwheels

now I'm a pensioner.

© Rachel Green July 2024

24th July 2024

 

heavy cloud

dissuading me from a bike ride

cancelled class

© Rachel Green July 2024

echoing footsteps

through the Wolverhampton underpass

heel clicks on pavement

and the scuff on cheap trainers.

A purse, clutched tight

as dear drives the length of stride

forty feet, thirty feet, twenty...

and then the streetlights and traffic

of Wednesfield Road

and the cheering warmth of a double decker.

© Rachel Green July 2024

23rd July 2024

 

partial cloud

allowing the sun to peek through

open curtains

© Rachel Green July 2024

putting weight on whilst on a diet

triggers a bout of depression.

and a renewed determination

to do better this week

Maybe I can

maybe I can't

but I'll live longer or die trying.

© Rachel Green July 2024

22nd July 2024

heavy cloud

live mouse in the rat trap

drowned

© Rachel Green July 2024

taking deckchairs

onto the maisonette roof

during a long, hot summer

spent in Wolverhampton.

We were overlooked by blocks of flats

but you could see all the way to Cannock Chase

and watch the police chase the drug dealers.

Whiling away the day with a pack of smokes

and a box of watercolour paints.

© Rachel Green July 2024

I bought a box of wet dog food

but the dog hates it

when I soak him before he eats.

 

21st July 2024

 

clear sky

filled with pigeons

bird feeder

© Rachel Green July 2024

waking up everyday

with a song in my head;

usually something stupid

I don't know all the words for.

Today it seems to be "Jambalaya"

by The Carpenters, puerile nonsense from the seventies

and the day before was "Tootsweets"

from the film "Mary Poppins,"

but with "lutefisk" replacing the titular candy.

Where do these songs come from,

and would a tin foil hat help?

© Rachel Green July 2024