My poetry spreadsheet has had a makeover!!

or perhaps more correctly, a spring clean! Hope you enjoy these ... comment welcome 

Only some of our journeys are planned

He was going the coming way

the driver explains and I’m sure

my grumped-up face shows  

that this is no reason for two vans

to be parked on my drive.

He who was going the coming way

arrived as the website to report

my lost bus pass crashes

which is why I’m at the window

during the swapping of parcels,

feeling as if I’m coming and going  

having tried to transfer credit

from my also-lost Oyster card

to a new one which now tells me

I must wait twenty-four hours

and nominate a station where

I can prove I am who I am,

and touch in on the card reader

but I can’t because tomorrow

I shall be going the coming way.

More than one degree

January

pull on hat

wrap around scarf

think about a fleece

button up waterproof

find welly socks,

clean tissues, gloves,

throw logs on fire

cajole dog from fire

knock mud from boots

squeeze feet into boots

clip on lead

walk

July

slip on flip-flops

clip on lead

walk

Poem in which I reach the last page

The conclusion of a good book

finds me in need of a map

of how to travel once

the diversion of its plot

reaches the last full stop.

I don’t have this trouble with

a no though road, I turn around,

head for its  openness, or the end

of a film, where the gap

between me and the screen

takes the measure of my footsteps,

and I can part very easily from

the final picture in a gallery

but after that good book has

held my hand, say, in the waiting room,

middle seated over Europe, or between

three and four in the morning,

after I’ve stowed the characters in my pocket,

worn the story as an extra layer when

I need to shop, swim, clean my teeth,

when, after all of that, I turn

the last page, close the back cover,

put away my bookmark,  I want

to give that good book a slap

for leaving to cast its spell on someone new.