Heat.

A bead of sweat jogs down
my damp forehead,
heading for the tip of my nose.
Where there was once "pit stains"
there now lies quarries.
The bus is tightly packed
as well as stuck behind lost
and foreign lorries.
I experience the deepest envy
I've ever known,
as outside the window
a small child holds two ice lollies.
What greed! What fiendishness!
To flaunt such a gift before us all
in this Public Pressure Cooker.
I'm not ashamed to admit the smile
that turned the corners of my lips,
when I saw those frozen poles
melt, and slide right off the sticks.

Summer.

There's a sweating, balding man in front.
It's not that I'm offended by his choice to occupy
half of the pavement by holding his elbows up
like some Wild West gunslinger;
I am offended by the fact that he does so
with a hugely knowing and chocolate glued
grin that guns down my patience.

There's a woman stood, with a pram.
The pram must remain side-on with
the pedestrian traffic so that her offspring
might watch us duck and weave;
kayaking through the heat and crowds
in this little seaside paradise which is
long overdue indifference.

There's a jovial family crossing the road.
They move at the pace of a diazepammed
slug that has just realised it really has
no place to be at all;
whilst staring, bemused, at the cars that honk
and the drivers that raise their hands in protest
"Hey! We're walking here".

There are two parents shouting nearby.
I don't know what their children did but
they were dragged to the alley beside my house
so the adults could rabidly declare their disdain;
a small hand is raised and the shouting pauses
before one of the kids urinates besides my garden,
pissing away my patience.

Cog.

A rusty, clockwork Cog rolls
from some nigh forgotten shelf
onto a carpet thick with dust.

Years of wear render its roll
uneven and unbalanced
as it traverses the living room.

It wobbles once, twice,
and then falls onto its side
as if to gaze upon the ceiling.

And this saves its eyes
from seeing the Grandfather clock
tick-tock as though the Cog was still inside.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

Tick.

Shark.

Last night I dreamt that I angered a shark so greatly
that it willingly threw itself onto the beach:
sacrificing its life for a chance to bite me.
It thrashed and bit until there it lied;
stone-cold; still; and beady-eyed.
I decided to take a picture,
before it was swept away by the tide.
(I only realised it was a dream
when I noticed my phone had died).

Absolution.

A hundred sweating, writhing bodies
stamp their weekday laden feet
upon the tainted deck.

The felt between throbbing speakers
and hordes of lust-drunk stompers
shakes as though it may tear.

Indiscriminate forget-me-nots are
handed out with grins and hips
to those whose memory blurs.

Cups of midnight absolution
are desperately sought by
self appointed social paragons.

Pulsing lights from a ceiling unknown
pour out their golden net and catch
two hundred wide-eyed glares.

And in the darkness they may move
like fairytale monsters under cover,
but all stay still once caught.

Spotlight.

There's a wind up spotlight
shining over a midnight battleground.
Snow, several inches thick,
renders defining the terrain
entirely impossible.

The Operator works harder,
the snow becomes brighter,
but the mechanism creaks
and breaks under the strain.
The light tilts downwards
and grants the Dark its reign.

Thorn.

Round the back of a house older than ourselves,
there rests an unkempt garden.

The grass shoots upwards from the earth,
tall enough to hide away the ground
and let forgotten creatures travel undetected.
The hum of the wings of bees and wasps
synchronise, drowning out all other sound,
whilst the multitude of bird songs go unrespected.

The forever growing canopy of leaves
threatens to hide the Sun and all its light
from everything dwelling below.
The arctic wind throws the branches about,
making them them snap, whip, and bite
at the whim of a bloody beaked crow.

Vines grapple with the house itself,
getting in between mortar and brick
as they slowly tear the place down.
Trampled flowers lie besides those
who stand with stems sturdy and thick,
but with petals beaten and brown.

I don't care for grass, or trees, or the everyday flower.
The sins of each don't seem worthy of my scorn.
There's only one thing in this garden I'd like to address -
the Roses weighed down by their Thorn.