Progress
When I turned twenty
I thought the world could be changed
like a pair of jeans, a little dirty
at the knees, fraying at simple seams.
Emergent detergent left
the great unwashed.
Thirty, I decided to be a lawyer
who'd unmask justice,
let her see into dark corners
with right vision goggles.
I stand convicted
of blank stupidity.
At forty, I realised
I'd better decide what I'd be
when I grew up.
Too late for Wimbledon,
I made a poetic racket,
served and volleyed
just inside the lines.
I'm still following through.
Courtyards
No pepper trees here, those spicy tangled willows
with a tacked-on launch pad for toilet roll rockets
or pink bungee fairies, who like to test their wings.
This is an exercise in the geometry of heat,
set square angles edging multitudinous bricks.
Gardening without flowers or bird singing bush,
mondo a mere margin between flat plains of colour.
Secrecy rooted out, and surprise. Bleached wall lion
dribbles spit at this jungle-less expanse, sneering.
A lack of trust in random seed, careful pavers planted,
perhaps some tepid topiary, that IVF of ivy, to mark
a flat packed display, where garden used to grow.