Catching the Butterfly (57), for Victoria

1.

Trace back my steps
To make sense of
Black ringed sea groynes
Geogrids plastic
Soil support
Rubberised movement joint
Black pebble slipway
Splitting asphalt and
Tarmac sloping away
Rusted sheet piles
Steep unguarded drop
Depths of sea weeds
And a boat
Lapping against the high tide
Short of hours
Tide tables, breakwaters
The shape of waves
Rolling, passer by
The last one won’t let go.

2.

Stuck, writing backwards
Two shells, black and white,
Among my hand
Among each other
Lovelorn
Palaces and hiding places
The beauty of shells of
You and me
And the sound of the sea
Within
Flutter and rush of blood
From here all is human centred
Inlets and coastal pools
Birds nesting among
Bunker grafitti
Wheat fields in motion
Hardy trees along the shingle
Street, blood red sand
Keep off beach.

3.

Trace back my steps
To see how I started
Loving this person
In this dream of mine
Catching the butterfly
Around grassy verges
Stooping left and right
Before it flies away
Forgetting everything
Once closely guarded
Like fortresses
And tiny windows
Like three turning four
The tilt of the earth
This side of the hour clock
And back again
Like bird cry, Mikama,
And when I stop still
It all comes back.

Choose Life

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose fast food and chain shops and identikit high streets. Choose cheap air travel. Choose energy from the grid. Choose exotic food. Choose cars. Choose a souped up exhaust. Choose concreting your driveway, your towns, your gardens. Choose motorway traffic. Choose pollution. Choose lung disease, pulmonary hypertension, depression. Choose criticism. Choose uptightness. Choose lack of imagination. Choose plastic. Choose disposable packaging, bottles, bags, and electric fans. Choose portable gas heaters. Choose your friends. Choose extra napkins. Choose your towels washed every day. Choose meat. Choose taking more than your share. Choose doing it like everyone. Choose cheap fashion. Choose treating the planet like a dustbin. Choose running the tap. Choose multiple showers. Choose timings. Choose waste. Choose closing your fucking eyes. Choose irresponsibility. Choose blame culture. Choose passing the buck. Choose moaning. Choose drinking so much to forget it all and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose money. Choose amassing excess wealth in property. Choose poverty. Choose drugs. Choose not being able to afford a fucking meal. Choose cruise ships. Choose exocoriating those in power. Choose anger. Choose machismo. Choose individualism, defensiveness, and populist rhetoric. Choose the same for your kids. Choose TV. Choose soap operas. Choose binge watching. Choose a laptop and emojis and firing off fucking emails. Choose picking up your phone every two minutes. Choose battery life. Choose power consumption. Choose bitching. Choose convenience. Choose the cheapest option or your money back. Choose suing the arse off someone. Choose lawsuits. Choose immortality. Choose another planet to wreck. Choose expression. Choose carbon. Choose your environment. Choose your mind.
Choose your future.
Choose life.

Escalator Safety Announcement

Escalator safety announcement
Dear passengers
Please consider the escalator moving stepway as you trample carelessly across it
Its years of operation and periodic frequency of disruptive maintenance cycles are in direct relation to your capacity for casual disregard
Those intractable cycles that you bemoan as if they were unavoidable
Ouch ouch ouch the escalator says
Each creak and groan another step on the ever-diminishing road to obsolescence
My wheels receive no oil, my cogs no lubrication, my machinery no care
Hold the handrail, okay
But do you hold my hand as you kick me repeatedly in the stomach
If you do, it's more likely so you can kick me harder, get a better grip, finish me sooner
Hold my hand quietly and be still.
Do you stomp over everything in the way you do the escalator
If so, kindly use the stairs.