My washing day ruined

Cellophane droplets

Slide with ease down the glass pane

My nose pressed against

Always An Afterthought

“Don’t be mad at me”
She laughs at this expression, yes
Even as her lips form a sullen pout
above the receiver.

She’s not mad at you though,
only at herself –
and her expectations,
and the realisation.

In the shadows

Always on the sidelines,
Forever outside, looking in,
to a world with no forgiveness
from a realm so full of sin.

Waiting room blues

It’s the smell of it…
Bleach and anti tobacco air freshener
Wafting under unplucked nostrils
Encouraging sneezes to dole out lurghee

From the middle aged man in the black cotton suit
shuffling uncomfortably
To the crazy bag lady from number forty three
Still hollering at the receptionist for losing her forms

It takes all sorts

They wander in
and out of this hive of necessity
Swaddled in winter clothes to stave off the cold
Even though its twenty degrees outside
Yet little good it does them
When seated in the cramped sweat box of a room
Accidentally being coughed on by pensioners
And touched by sticky fingers
stretched out from ridiculously large pushchairs
Tiny lungs piercing ear drums
A generic wince shared by all.

…

A Weekly Ritual

One, two, three, four,
Don’t forget to lock the door
Five, six, seven, eight
Come on now we’re running late
One, two, three, four,
Change of shoes, her feet are sore
Five, six, seven, eight
I jangle keys, as though they’re bait
One, two, three, four
Clearing leaves from the floor
Five, six, seven, eight
Almost got her to the gate
One, two, three, four
Just go back and check once more
Five, six, seven, eight
Make a phone call while I wait
One, two, three, DOOR
Five, six, seven, LATE

Fleeting thought

All the world a party
and all the sea a stage.
A lifetime we departed
for nothing more than age

Gaming night: The Aftermath

‘I’ll leave you fighting your demons’
an irony that’s not wasted on me
The white grenache drips
from the lip of the bottle
as I shake the remnants
Careful not to waste a drop

We were once a ballad
you and I
a couple to be envied
So in sync and never apart
Out of choice though
Both yours and mine

Yet shared wine becomes solo
Minds working on differing levels
just as in games
We each fight our own battles
but standing apart
Different platforms – different worlds

‘It doesn’t matter’ you persist
We share the same space
Yet I have never felt further
from you – from the truth
I am more aligned with this bottle
Once filled with joy – now just an empty husk

SoCS – Cash

Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “cash”

It’s a dirty word so they say, and as a product it’s actually dirty if you ask my friend about this who works in a cash office. I guess if you think about it logically it’s true too, all those places that money seems to go that we never really think about. Notes they get scrunched up in pockets, rolled up for drugs, left in old socks under mattress for paranoid people saving for a rainy day. They get folded and slipped into bra’s by girls out dancing but are too young to carry a bag (ah I remember those days fondly), or folded into the back of a travel pass – that emergency money we all desire to have available.

Then of course we still have the coins to think about, covered in ridges ready to hold the dirt and grime of everyday life. Clammy metal that attracts all manner of bacteria from sticky fingers eager to by sweets, or coins placed in mouths by bored children which then get put back into purses. Coins that drop on to pavements or roll through the grass . We even used to have a game of monies when we were young (after marbles got banned in our school) which meant we were actually just throwing money around on the floor yet we never questioned the germs: and you can bet the tuck shop never did either.

Even now I will always find dusty coins while cleaning, hidden in handbags and pockets of coats, or simply coins that have been dropped and rolled out of sight. I have containers of pennies that get put into tubs with the idea that one day I will pour them into the cash counting machine yet this never actually happens so instead I just end up with a big coin mountain.
Maybe one day soon I will get around to actually doing this, I could be rich! Or at least have enough for a bottle of wine to reward myself for the next batch of cleaning

Wake up call

Still looking forward

No early alarm, yet sad

Not to hear your voice

 

 

 

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It hangs

In the balance between

You and I

The empty air of silence

All those words left unsaid,

about the elephant,

and whose room he’s in, and why?

Tiny pockets crammed with conviction

Suit jackets lined with lies.

Yet still, we tiptoe

Between discarded clothes and comments

Barbed by hatred, hidden by love.

Such fickle creatures

We live by the moonlight of tenacity.