Henry Bladon

Today the sun was too late for the sunrise and I knew
how it felt because I had to coax my body into action

I first went to the knitting shop and looked at all the wool
and thought tangled thoughts under the recessed lights

I went across the forecourt and past the bearded man
who was taking a picture of a tiny ladybird

I walked beside the cottonwood trees as they swayed in the wind
and covered all the cars with a layer of summer snow

I watched the gulls swarm ’round the uneaten remains
of fast-food cartons discarded on sun-stained grass

I thought about your fleshy lips and where we stood
on the colour wheel theory of love and how you laughed

when we stood on that bridge that time in Amsterdam
and I said I wanted to return my life but hadn’t kept the receipt

but as I sit on the wall and watch the incoming tide
I know I’m glad I never did.

A clown was sitting on the kerb outside a shop; he had his head in his hands.
Resting beside him was a coffee cup half full of gin.

A cat looked up from licking his paw. He paused and said,
What’s going on? You appear to be sulking.

The clown started shaking his head. It’s the end of the line, he said,
my life is reduced to trying to make snotty children laugh.

The cat snorted. If you don’t mind me saying, it looks like your mug is half empty.
When I’m dead I‘m having a bronze statue put up in my memory.

I could be doing something more meaningful like collecting seashells,
said the clown, or even counting egg-shaped pebbles on the beach.

Not exactly Panglossian, are you? said the cat as he trotted off.

A man wearing a red hat appeared from the shop
holding up a board with the words GIN SALE written in chalk

The best way to get her attention
would be to run my finger
across the edge of the paper

then I could tell her
all about her hermetically sealed heart

but that would be something
she wouldn’t understand

I could say it feels like
my life is stuck in a rainy car park
and that’s how it feels being with you

I would add that I have decided
I’m going to drive someplace else

but that would be something
she wouldn’t understand

So instead I ditched the metaphors
and walked away
but when I looked back

she still didn’t understand.