Statuesque

Green copper is municipal.
Like great hulking metal radiators
Caked with paint but furnace hot.
the smell of chlorine and lukewarm footbaths.
Doors too heavy to yield to a child's most insistent shove.
Preformed concrete and plastic carpet which will skin your knees.
Yesterday's future is tomorrow's investment opportunity.

Caged

Raindrops cling for a while, pooling on vertical glass
defying gravity.
Then running, jagged mad patterns
leaving a wake of spidery trails.

I will walk in the fields.
Stalks of dead corn,
ghosts of a harvest
broken corpses of a summer past.

A patchwork square
divided by hawthorn
ploughed into horizontal submission
revolution suppressed by chemical.

Up and down
a sodden, rutted parade ground.
West to east.
East to west.

Pendulum

Time is the thief of attention
Blurring the detail, the diamond shimmer of dew on the grass
Smudging the edges, dulling the shine.
Colours fade in the pull of the tide.

I wrote it.

Nothing special this - I just haven't written for a bit and wrote this to demonstrate something about adapting stories for different audiences. I wondered if I could give it some attention later and flesh it out and that and it might be better than it is so putting here to remember.

There was nothing for Mr H. Dumpty to do. He was a fat man. An egg shaped man. Not a pretty young thing. A fat old egg shaped man. He’d had a job once. A job he’d enjoyed. They closed the factory down. Knocked it to the ground.

He wanted to do something but everywhere he went he got told. ‘No jobs here mate’ So he drunk. Cider, vodka, whatever he could get his hands on.

One day they was a parade. A royal parade. At last! Something to do.

Mr Dumpty got up early and went to get a good view. He climbed up on a wall and sat there, waiting for the parade. Of course, he’d brought his vodka with him.

He waited and waited, until finally the king’s parade was passing. The crowds waved and cheered and Mr Dumpty waved and cheered as well. He waved for all his life was worth. He waved, desperate to be seen, desperate not to be a nobody, desperate to be a somebody for a moment, desperate for the king to see him, just for a split second, to be gazed on by royalty, to be watched by someone who mattered, he waved and he waved and he waved so much that….

He fell. Crack. Head, pavement. Skull split like a delicate eggshell.

There was a commotion in the parade. The king had seen him fall. He ordered his men to the scene.

But it was too late. They couldn’t revive him. No matter what they tried.