Best Regards

You 'appened to pre-empt me, when speakin' of yer 'elf.

I knows it weren't deliberate - you said as much yerself.

But 'ow's that knee, still playin' up? And eyestrain - any better?

I'd email, but me laptop's broke. Still, rather post a letter.

Did Jason get that ware'ouse job? The Amazon, I mean.

I know he's on the JSA, but this time he seemed keen.

And Tania - she still goin' out with that bloke from New York?

Three years seems quite a time to me - d'you think it's just all talk?

I thought I'd drop a quick hello, and Best Regards from Sid.

Ooh yes, and while I've got the chance, could you lend me thirty quid?

 

 

Stumps and Cores

When you do too

I through

The fruitish shadows

Shuffle,

Disturbing only stumps and cores.

 
When I spy sky

You by

The drying windfalls

Shriek,

And shout out about hips and haws.

 
Why, while I awkwardly pass

Orchard-enthralled, must you mass

Pips in my apple pie?

 

 

  To see more of my poems, just click here

Our two trees shit their leaves upon the lawn,

In shades of yellow, ochre, brown and fawn.

They feather down like welcome garden birds,

But there's no song from these arboreal turds.

Ah, such the joys of Autumn, such the pleasures,

In sweaty toil to rake these sticky treasures!

All summer long I praised their greenery,

Adorning gently swaying scenery.

But this the price I pay, the bottom line,

A penalty I'd never get from pine.

The sycamore's samaras I embargo -

Small helicopters landing with their cargo.

Their seeds would germinate in one great horde

I scoop them, drag them, pluck them from the sward.

The oak's familiar jigsaw pieces fall,

Attended by the squirrel's favourite haul.

Beneath the trees, atop some banks of moss,

She digs her little safes (afraid of loss);

But she forgets, of course, and, 'midst the roots,

Next Spring I'll check and withdraw all the shoots.

There's more to come, but weather takes its cue:

A minor hurricane brings down a few.

A hopeful acorn cannons like a rocket

Across the green baize to a grassy pocket.

For now I work the piles, leaves, twigs and branches,

And fold them in the trug in countless tranches ...