JAZZ CAME FIRST

The Big Bang was merely a spasm
In the drummers right foot. Warming up
for a performance to turn space inside out.
Sparks from cymbals each creating gravity.
A universe from every beat in an endless groove.

Wow! Here comes the melody.

THE JEAN'S GENES

It's official. Straight from Downing Street.
A mother has given birth to a son with five brass belly buttons.
The mite inherited his father's Levi genes.

Complaints about the misuse of a press briefing should
Be emailed to Jon Snow.

IN TRANSIT

Six hangers tap each other as the door closes.
It is good to have arrived where blandness can't distract me
From the timely quiet of my senses.
I can sigh, look down at the car park, and
No dormant messages of scorn are strong enough to surface.
Which bed? Shrug. Coffee? Tea? Downstairs for a beer?
The shower hisses at incompetence.
Tick, Tick, Tick. The radiator speaks, but has no alarm
to warn of its power to scorch.
Here there is only the present. My environment has nothing left to say.
And tomorrow's goodbyes will be the offhand tappings of the hangers.

CAROL

Coming to the embrace of my consciousness
when she chooses, texturing the air with stories.

PASSING STRANGERS

There is this hollow with trees underlit
by the canal reflecting.

And past me on the towpath comes a woman
in embroidered flares, all sunburn
and buttocks
and velvet hat,
and she swings
and sways
and flaps her hands
and treads a line
like a catwalk model with an appetite,
and nobody to please except herself
and her reflection
and me. Astonished.

Who cares where she is going
and why
and whom to meet
and the appointed time?