Mind Slip

Nestled in my cerebrum

is a coral garden

inhabited by diminutive neon-striped fish.

Darting, technicolour lollies

with dialed-up clarity.

A child's colouring book,

its texta bright etchings

spill

into an iridescent ocean of thoughts.

Sunlight skips a tiny dance

through transparent bodies

as they kiss at

puffs

of microscopic life

encased in living cliffs.

Nibbling, pecking and falling

to cavernous trenches

as blue fades to navy and a murky steel.

My musings can be an ocean clam

yawning

and bogged,

spongy, sedentary.

Underwater sounds

echo and murmur

and SCUBAed mouths

breathe phosphorescent fizz,

a trail of bubbles

and a slow-motion shout's

distorted cry

…"oorrrrrggggghhhhh!"

Clarity sears when slow thoughts

emerge

from the deep.

A leviathan submarine, 

a drifting colossus.

Bulky

indistinct

with a questioning eye

glaring straight through me:

searching for sense,

a disdainful blink

before

the behemoth floats away.

Its legacy a deep thrilling fever

seeping and energizing,

mind racing free and clear.

(David)

London Town

(and a nod to Shakespeare's sonnets)

From ancient camps installed by waters deep,

Subsisting on the lifeblood's bounty by

Struggle, strife, survival lulled to sleep

Precarious lives suspect the end is nigh.

Defend the source against invading hordes,

Pyrrhic victories depress the populace,

Tribes evolve and peasants hail their Lords

Royal games begin, the Globe and palaces

Evolve from scabrous launch to dizzy heights,

Steel spine hardened by adversity and war,

Cultured urbane and dazzling human lights,

Edifices grand and stiff upper lip the core.

Thames' living fields pulse dance and sing
Hewn from battle, flourish... abiding

(David)

Quake

This morning a queasy tremble

Shuddered through our building:

An edifice anchored deep to bedrock

A tick burrowed in an animal's pelt

With some surprise, I swayed and swooned:

The power quite unsettling.

If this behemoth flicked like a flag in a breeze

What other jellied earth was shifting so?

I pondered the permanence

Of structures propped on shifting plates

Lives bedded on concrete and mortar

Fortunes fickle with steel and glass

Were we meant to worship the tactile

Or nestle deeper in thoughts and souls?

A love song, a thought caress sang softly to me

As the building quivered but failed to fall  

(David) 

Antidiluvian Apparatus

The Spirit Copier

Fresh faced teachers

twinkling with Socratic fervour

toiled before a manually cranked

gleaming metal drum

methyl cloud, a heady scent

pages spat with blue inked letters

little halos round each imploring the gods' attention

a Gestetner duplication

A Personal Ream of A4 Paper

A cache,

a secreted ream locked in a drawer

waiting

its precious cargo

raided sheet by sheet

a week's lessons jigsawed and patchworked

a double sided Rosetta stone

guarded, defended, treasured

The Overhead Projector

 a futuristic machine

a refulgent Dalek with a clunky fan

and a funky name

it scorched unwary hands

with gilled metal sides

that hacked  out fiery dragon coughs

plastic sheets lay recumbent, gelled as one

in bright cardboard folders

selected and peeled year on  year

a luminous lesson  beamed from box to screen.

"Dustless" Coloured Chalk

in ostrich plumed majesty,

it etched and evanesced.

a mist of tiny particles
exploded forth

as the stick tapped and danced

on an upright slate hoisted on the wall.

it taunted the class as it formed
a stick figure tableau vivant

like a Fauvist masterpiece.

(David)