This month's collaboration takes inspiration from Green's Windmill...
When my head is tight with
blustering ruminations, when I feel
the limitations of using words
to navigate my world, I sit
among tickling technicolour blades,
sunken cogs and sharply gazing
pebbled eyeballs, felled
log crocodiles, foaming
bubbled holds and algebraic chutes,
with swathes of sage that
taste like unclenched teeth
surveying slate landscapes in fragile
flux punctuated by distant sirens
the roar and squawk of schoolkids
I let them rattle
past while the sails inside
my mind pound and clang
I walk to the allotment welcomed
by pockets of pansies who
greet me growling up like
lion cubs, emboldened with
renewal while their neighbours
lie gasping, parched
Now is not their time.
They will rest and emerge like
serpents bursting hissing through
the dirt, reborn
I’m drawn towards the focal point
that towering monument to
self-taught genius, parental inheritance
which has weathered fire, grief, riots,
light breezes and gales
Am I too powered by turbulence?
I think about buying a bag of
powdered power to bake
and savour, letting that ghostly
dust cling to my fingertips,
remnants of resilience.
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