100 words for snow It’s coming: tiny white asterisks on the forecast. Precipitation slithers from ‘now here’s the weather’ into a real news item. Tilting to lead skies optimistic. The way orange smoulders at the horizon. Fragile, original, flakes on my sleeve It’s not lying. Then the jolly dotty fluttering Hollywood puffs of flattering fluff […]
A train to meet – 100 words
A train to meet The road into town is a gift of misty valleys, glinting lakes and ‘Look, there, over the station!’ ‘What? Oh, yes’ Clouds of dark swirl together, apart, together twisting grey to darkest black shape of a cobra, shape of a heart a murmuration a boomerang of birds. ‘What kind? Where do […]
Helm wind – 100 words
Helm wind You are a wicked, spiteful gust coming here throwing bin lids about. You clatter and rattle, bruising paint and denting, flattening crop heads and shaking branches bare. Dislodging my peace and flipping hair in my face, Why can’t you let me have this calm day? Grit in my eyes, icy fingers down my […]
Down paw – 100 words
Down paw Where I live it doesn’t rain instead, a large damp dog arrives drenched, drooling and dirty Its arse – grey-brown and stinking – descends growling low, lowering, filling the blue and crushing. Tail flicks the branches wet pelt obscures skylark skies, joy and our optimistic horizons everything blurs and our ears are full […]
99 words
Sometimes a scrap of knowledge gets caught in my brain and I can’t stop worrying at it. Today I learned that William Wordsworth and mutinous Fletcher Christian were at school together. Not in the same class, plotting separate extraordinary careers, of course, but in the same building for a while. Christian, six years older, ignored […]