Mobile Awareness

 

“Quick or dead?” the birdie asked,

while I diddled on my phone.

The prodded apps have always masked

the fact that I am here alone.  

“I’m quick and dead,” I soon replied,

while fiddling factors on my phone.

My fingers, fast, my dried mind tied

to small reflections out on loan.   

“Do you think I can be classed,

while pics flash vivid on my phone, 

with millions by whom ‘life’ has passed 

when whirled away by song and moan?

“Life’s not so great; see bloodied news

of wars and famine on my phone,

of children blinded, left no views

of bombed-out schools within their zone.

“I could go on, judgmental bird,

while death deals daily on my phone,

but hold you to be most absurd

when you imply we reap what’s sown.

“Do you, in danger, swarm in flocks,

your swooping flights caught on my phone?

Well, there you go! And no-one mocks.

You’re rightly free to save your own.

“So do not hint, O snippy bird,

that I waste time when on my phone,

but hear intently every word:

I chase life down, the life I’ve known.”

         

Nature's Response

 

That black flap

across the lawn,

“Useless,” he says.

I see our morning

blackbird with a worm,

he all rainbow dark,

stabbing yellow beak

and inked eye

fixed for homing.

He’ll be back

for the warble,

to chuckle a long song

where no leaf moves

nor grass blade bends

in the still air, echoing.

Reflections

 

This may have been a king’s mirror,

while only obsidian polished to a shine.

Not powerful locally, did he big

himself up with a mini-me, the shrine

a walk away on a Sun God day

to favour the stay of his long bloodline,

the unsettling mask cupped in his hands,

its dark stone flecked with white,

while the people clapped a way into ritual

through the long bright of his own light

he not responding to human sound,

only he perpetual by right,

so the deep-lipped guise should inform us?

Quite. Or no. We cannot know,

whichever world centre or direction

we long regard. What’s on show

now are bee masks, V.’s mask, death masks,

and those fragile bits we labour to sew.

Potpourri

 

It stays where cuts trap light and fingers,

delicacy all Georgian glitter-glass,

fragile as the far distant ring of bells,

ting, tang, tang, on Easter morning.

Still full of your powder and puff,

your perfume laced with the hollow air,

a small urn in the bowl of my hands,

it came to me of a home morning.

Dark now, your roses with mine,

crisp thin, crackle in the depth,

musky and rich across my room,

pulse through every memory’s morning.