Need for escape

NEED FOR ESCAPE
© mmSeason

This piece was a runner-up in the Wiltshire Libraries Annual Poetry Competition (2003, i think)

A gleam of gladdening pearly sky today; a finch;
a pretty gathering of buds in our painted vase;
a screenful of murder and porn before breakfast?
I left world troubles flickering
behind the rising sun's reflection
on our vine-framed panes,
and fled to the weeding.

I can be discriminating. Some days
maybe I am a murderer:
ripping up the fittest plants,
burying bright flowers in the rubbish,
favouring my own chosen beauties -
unnatural selection.
But this morning
tiny pink petals
peeked, standing up out of the bin bag,
promised to live on, and I
trafficked in child slavery

then came in for the end of the news.