Small stones: an exercise for January

[bodkin]

one toddler lies on the cold ground
while the other falls over, laughing

[RichardSanders]

Empty cardboard boxes of spend fireworks on the side of the streets,
Empty beer and champaign bottles in a cardboard box in my hallway,
Empty guest rooms, plates of cheese and sacks of potato chips,
Empty slates and new year's resolutions soon to be forgotten,
Each new year starts off empty; how will we fill this one?

[Inky]

Have you ever doubted
dawn? Procellous seas?
Loved a gangrel of a girl?
Found an ectype without a prototype?
Only on this January lucent earth,
red-boned.

[Antcliff]

Hailstorm between the car and shop
and hear talk of 21 days of gale on Skye.

[RichardSanders]

Hailstorm between the car and shop
and hear talk of 21 days of gale on Skye.

Sound like a time to cuddle up by the fireplace with a nice dram of Talisker.

[bodkin]

folded and folded and folded, a crisp packet
between the drainpipe and the wall

[BenJohnson]

I am used to worms being shorter
and more full of colour
from the flesh coloured band
wrapped around its throat
like an elastoplast to the end
of its tail this worm is like a sock
that has stretched in the wash
dragged down by the weight of water
it is so full of rain it is almost
the colour of rain. It heads towards
uncertainly over an expanse
of slowly drying tarmac.

[bodkin]

bright red lipstick
bright red 'reduced' labels

[Ros]

on the pond
double ripples
of perfect circles

[RichardSanders]

Rooms all clean and tidy again
and now the floor's expanse
from wall to bare white wall,
seems larger without the clutter of my life.
Empty floors and barren walls,
clinically lifeless.
I prefer messy.

[bodkin]

paging through the speed-dial
saw the dead-man's number,
stopped

[BenJohnson]

A sea gull and a sea gull
one of them dancing
for worms

[Antcliff]

For the first time in weeks
there is no sound of wind at night.
Everything seems friendlier.
Small hours are mine again.

[anaisnais]

Loving this thread and the concepts within....

Houses on parade
Guards to civilisation
A great divide between man and space
Escapism opposed to reality

Sentinals stand at either end of street
Neighbourhood watch
Dangerous tongues gossip
Prepare for another enslaught

[dragonfly]

Pale, tight
crocus buds -
eyelids shut
against the wind.

[RichardSanders]

A few leafs in browns and reds
hanging on in doubt
if winter has come
without snow.

[bodkin]

Yesterday:

Nemo swims
takes the colder shower
slaps himself dry
with a tiny towel
can a used car salesman
actually be a Spartan?

Today:

A Subway server thinks
'a little mayonnaise'
means floating
only one battleship.

[RichardSanders]

Twenty-twelve, the twins started tweeting.

[anaisnais]

children on scooters
kirby and kick the can
... lost in remember when
Twilight zone

[bodkin]

two on the seeds
two on the lawn
two flying in
and two flying out --
molto chaffinches

[Antcliff]

Fat rolled into a ball
and hung for birds.
Untouched, which is unusual.
Moral: there are no birds left.

[Ros]

four pennies and a satsuma
on the stone in the stone circle
pagan gods come cheap nowadays

[nar]

Seven foot zero of nicotine-bearded Gandalf
is boarding the eight-eighteen again,
bemoaning (by Blackberry) his staff,
to his (Glasgow City) Council.

Fly, you fool.

[bodkin]

full moon
in the tree
behind number forty-two

[Antcliff]

Dad dodged a cow,
wrote off the car.
Dead car beneath the moon,
listening, bitter, to the sound
of a cow munching.