A quiet place

by Michael Holme

I lift my inch-too-long trousers as I squelch
over the lawn past trees and a rose bed.
A grandma is pictured at the edge
of the spiky flowers on an imitation
granite memorial. Simple plaques abound.

Gaudy plastic flowers form the bulk
of the rainbow in this garden.
I assume “life is for the living.”

Then I reach it: a maple tree, the canopy of leaves
I’ve never seen. I look down at the cross of calcite
and other noncombustibles on the ground.

The grass is dry here and I sit cross legged.
I say a default hi Love, then reminisce or tell you what’s new.

Blades have started piecing your symbol that dwarfs my seat.
They’re waiting for a lawnmower; then what?
But you’re being consumed by this mighty tree’s roots.

I recite our psalm, 121, from memory, and read
two prayers. Then I think, can I come tomorrow?
The ground is blurring and I add a few salty drops
to the efforts of the elements.
Lighting a cigarette I tell you one way or the other,
never breaking my promise.

Then I walk to our car, carefully throwing
my extinguished stub in a rubbish bin
next-door to a green one full of wilted flowers.
I wipe my eyes, feeling I’ve been with you.

Till we meet again, wish me Godspeed in this life.

Educating Pigeons

by Michael Holme

The window is open,
and Glenn Gould’s Bach emanates.
It’s a fugue from book one,
high volume
is bastardising its beauty.
A man with a dog walks past
surprised. It is 6am.
Two pigeons land on the garden wall,
taken in by the counterpoint,
and nod heads in canon with one another.
They appear to get the point.
Had the music been heavy rock,
the man would have assumed
the culprit was a power-waker,
preparing for a day of ambitions.
But Glenn, another eccentric,
can only mean one thing.
This riser is trying to educate
pigeons.

Night out

by Michael Holme

“Easy living” on piano seduces in the soundscape
with the drummer’s brushes pushing.
They beckon abundant filigrees
floating in the air.

People guard whiskey,
and gin chaser collections.
Alongside hedgehog ashtrays
doused in tar.

His thigh feels taps of the bassist crotchets,
at an andante tic-toc speed.

He could kill to hear Piaf in the mix,
regardless of his lack of French.
Any sultry singing would do though,
the cream on this audio mocha.

In the downstairs toilet a message reads,
“Anyone dealing in drugs
will be barred and reported to the police.”
At twenty steps down, heels are sirens.
How it works is anyone’s guess.

The light down here shocks his pupils,
and the purity of the air revitalises.
He’s an easel relieving himself, forearm on wall.
Then he crouches to forcibly throw.
This is what he calls a night out, alone.

Revenge of the mutant camels

by Michael Holme

I’ve had dreams like this before;
dead bodies in high-vis vests
caught in plant machinery.
Can you imagine it, semi stiff arms pointing
from dirty JCBs? I’ll STOP right there.
I’m sorry, I don’t write about roses
and springtime, new born lambs and love.
I blame it on television and video games,
ZAP, K-POW. Revenge of the Mutant Camels
was my 8-bit, pixelated, eighties diffuser of angst.
When I was a lad we’d no Duke Nukem 3D
in a million colours. We lived with sixteen.
But I dreamed in rainbows, like I do today,
and that gets me back to dumper yellow,
recurring, waking me in the night with a challenge.
It’s not real. Carnage in the quarry is my wraith.