October 1st, 2020

 

 

Take a holiday from prose,

end your sentence:

close it with a question mark.

 

Walk in the rec,

park your ideas

behind the swings.

Look up at the sky,

at the far from lonely clouds.

 

In the woods,

turn left,

go sinister,

feel the sponge of moss

and undergrowth

under your feet,

while the birds

speak in larks’ tongues:

hold the aspic, please.

 

By the canal

pretend it’s the river

rolling to the sea:

unstoppable,

like the years.

Look upstream

at your past

and two swans,

with an ugly duckling.

 

Come back to the prosy,

cosy town with

the oldest sweetshop

east of the Pennines,

its jars full of cola cubes,

lemon sherbets and the forgotten

delights of childhood.

Outside the doorway

silvered bullets litter

the cracked footpath.

 

 

Get home, safe and sound

of mind and body,

more or less.

Pick up a book,

someone’s anthology,

a nation’s favourite

something-or-other

or flit to Simon’s

Yorkshire or William’s lakes.

 

Or just pick up a pen,

take it for a walk,

like the one

you’ve just taken,

today.