My Wife Makes A Cup Of Tea
The tattered tree is a yarn of fun,
the motley cloth, the clowning crew.
I sip my tea. These folktale folk
are but the froth of a strange brew.
This folly feeds no sinking guilt,
no consequence, the autumn leaf
within my head has a fiction built.
I dunk a bicky. My release.
Study, as colourful as clay,
is a mooring draught, but folktale life
will boat the bookish man. I play.
A faun makes merry with my wife.
Identity
A mountain skirted with mist. The willow's sway rippled
across the loch. The breeze whispered --
Wait. Wait by the sedge. Wait.
A selkie swam. Pale lips and pale mouth. He leapt and snatched both thought and voice.
Never. He said. Never forget.
I waited. Something snuffled close-by. Flight chattered
through the aspens. A finch flitted, flared, and was gone.
The hurried leaves untethered.
Dawn hesitated in cloud. Water tugged a tangle of roots. The mist drifted. Branches sifted the sky. I dived.
Bedtime Genre
A cosy murder book to fall asleep,
less corpse, more tea and cake. He's counting crows.
One taps the glass and shatters sleep. He wakes.
He reads a play about procrastination
and ghosts. No time to dream of sleep
the haunting one insists and pours a coffee
into his ear, the pages of punishment
and crime, and Sonya who will sacrifice
herself. The guilty man can never sleep.
He writes the first detective story, dies
of rabies, suspect pet, or so they say.
Too many clues? The coroner falls asleep.
Flight of the dragonfly 