Non-meeting with a deer, 31.12.08

Ten minutes before midnight I go out into the pitch black garden and crouch with my back against the hedge. The air is cold. After a while, I hear cropping and munching sounds from just over there.

reading about rooks and crows, I see them everywhere

a tractor drags its skirt of birds

Leek soup

From shop to palm to earth to plant in three quarters of a year. From earth to pot to soup to belly in three quarters of an hour.

enough cold nut roast

coming around again

carrying compost across the grass in my spanking-new pink wheelbarrow, I split the last of last year's bulbs and push the white cloves into the crumbly earth

the post-roast-partridge tin slides sweetly across the film of splashed washing-up water

Roadolf

I find Erin's reindeer in my notebook, labelled 'Roadolf the red nos rander'. Last week, I asked her to draw me a surprise.

christmas window

a triangle of wine left in the glass
darker than the night window
where the reflection of fairy lights
are light rain on a clear pond

a jay in the tree, his blue the blue of blues

god is in the rain

the new inn, stratfield saye

there is nothing vegetarian on the menu. he asks 'do you eat fish?' hopefully. am I his first?

inside where it's warm

the wind breathes down the chimney, the dark presses its cheeks up against the windows

After driving over a sleeping policeman

The Hello Kitty air freshener swings back and forth: I haven't noticed it doing that before. It's been right in front of my eyes for 19 months.

Overheard conversation in the village shop

Do you have any chocolate advent calendars left?
Sorry, no.
Oh. The cat was sick on my daughter's one.

the snowy ash suffuses the air around the compost bin

a run-over cellophaned bunch of flowers on the roundabout

This morning next to the bird food box - a decapitated finch.
I lift both pieces by the feathers and fling it into the grass.

Kings Thorne to Stratfield Turgis

Cold Slad
Birdlip
Duntisbourne Leer

in love with the world again, small stones are everywhere
and right here, this smear of bright blood from a paper cut

the teased-out clouds pull back, reveal
the beautiful face of the moon

roll these words around in your mouth

a lit cigarette skids on the tarmac
the tangerine tip brighter than break-lights

This morning a fly expired on the tip of my golden buddha's head-dress.
I scraped him into the bin and said goodbye.

a thick frost: not covering it up, but showing us the world more clearly

'Yes please,' 'Thank you,' 'Would you like some mummy?' says the little blonde boy on the train.

the jar of Coleman's horseradish sauce doesn't have any heat

his guinea fowl with pea fritter on pea puree has one variety of pea concoction too many

September's sunflowers hang in torn brown tatters, offering their heads as food for tits

I've think I've fallen out of love with stones - and then remember
all I have to do is stop and look

no stone

no stone