What exactly is a samosa?
One Rugby School girl to anther
in  Asda.
Need I say more? 

This is such a good prompt, Patrick, and it proved to be very inspirational..And my poem is based on a real event, I didn’t make it up.

MARSHMELLOWS

I was walking through town yesterday, when a man with a very refined RP accent said to his wife…’it isn’t a very posh High Street, is it?’ Which I thought would make a good poem. So this week, write a poem based on something overheard. But if, like me, you don’t get out much, Google ‘overheard’, or similar -or make it up. Did that judgemental man really exist?

Now I also wanted you to know that some parts of Canada (yes I know it’s weird) are not falling back this year (or until the many governments change their minds). Check the link in case you’re interested.

Stateless

Rough and ready. But trying to not drop out again. x x

If we are the pinnacle, god help us!

If we are the apex of creation
I worry for the future.

If we are the best guardians
of this beautiful, rainbow green
and mother blue spinning mass
of improbable life, all I have
to offer are my tears.

Evolution is supposed to
adapt us for survival.

Evolution is supposed to
make us better at living
in our environment.

Evolution is supposed to
create diversity.

Evolution is about populations
not individuals.

None of us can do this
fragile thing alone.

It’s not that we cannot be great.
It’s not that we do not have potential.

It’s not that we do not do
wonderful things every single day
like giving our blood or bone
marrow or organs to save another
Like loving and loving and loving
some more. Like forgiveness.

But is it enough to stop
this beautiful planet burning?

Evolution – a Mothers  Version

One stitch   like a seed   and another
needles click    time ticks
hour by hour     row by row
Increase    decrease   slip stitch over
dropped stitch glitch      ripped back to repair
continue         knit one purl one      cabled arran
fair isle      colour      patterns growing.
French knitting’s hope
a small girl with her tongue sticking out
earnestly looping her unicorn’s rein.

Evolution

A change that creeps slowly into time
Never bright or hard
A whisper of a difference,
crying out for understanding
A tear rolling down a cheek
A breath, short and graceful
What was unnoticed becomes a flash
of genius every other living thing
wishes to copy but cannot
A change when change is all but impossible
An unexpected expectation

Funnily enough, ‘belonging/unbelonging’  was also my prompt in Week 20..I was worried because only three people wrote to it..

I am glad it came up again and as part of Verve’s annual competition. I read Susan Howe’s words on this theme and of course she is much more articulate.

So, this is my poem inspired by Sarah Howe.

LANGUAGE

I should write about the tortoises who, for the first time, will hibernate in a larder fridge. Blame climate change. I have been decorating all afternoon, so here is a poem that I have been working on this week to send to Brian at Poetry Parlor. It is about a change in circumstances.

Removals

I made some notes months ago about peppered moths because I liked the name and wanted to write about them.  This isn’t the poem I thought I’d write, but it’s what arrived this week!

Lessons in Evolving

The peppered moths
rest like scraps of lace, like freckled parchment
exquisitely invisible against pale bark

until one morning it’s the Industrial Revolution
the bark is soot-black, birds can see them

all this has something to do with Darwin but
I can’t grasp details, cannot concentrate
because Tom Murphy
has not said hi, has not glanced my way
is staring at a girl perched two desks down
who’s fluttering her hair and laughing

Tom Murphy
will never look at me again, pale wings
are being snatched up, mauled and eaten,
it is the end of everything

to my surprise I’m wrong

the peppered moths refuse to become extinct
shrug, breed themselves a dark disguise instead

the moths adapt
survive

and so do I .

Blue-green algae

Welcome 
to your great- great to the nth
Grandparent.
Blue-green algae – 
that slimy stuff 
on  the fringe of the sea
Yuck
And to  that snap crackle and  pop
that started you off
In your long day’s journey
Into light. 
Hello and welcome.
Who’d have thought
that nasty something 
that the tide brought in 
would have such future in it. 

Missing you already

 From the fourteenth floor
I looked down on the road
stretching straight and wide
towards  town and the tiny bakery
with loaves baked the traditional way,
the queue cluttering the pavement.
The squeals of kindergarten  children,
across the road, competed  with 
occasional calls on the carpark 
loud d+speaker system next door.
Home again   to  Sunday silence,
the hedge muffling passing traffic,
and for a moment I missed my old room.

i am back at home at last. Being inyndated by all the health and welfare authorities. Gorgeous scunshine streaming-through the window.  I just need to get my head together.

I’m posting this before I change my mind -I can’t believe we’re halfway through the year, and that I’ve written so little.

Garden and Gardener

Memories, Good and Bad

When, that which changes, gives us a choice,
remember the stain that cannot reason.
If unaccompanied by the light of day,
remember darkness as a friend instead.
He who asks the questions posed by chance
remembers that the uninitiated are at risk.
When wishing for the best of times for all,
remember the worst of times will still occur for some.

I haven’t got to grips with Elizabeth Jennings’ style either, but I did attempt more end-of-line rhymes (or half-rhymes) as a nod in that direction.  And I’m enjoying reading her, so thank you Mary.  Good luck with all the endless things you’re dealing with re your move.  It’s an overwhelming process, I do hope it goes reasonably smoothly for you.

Seasonal

Every autumn we would crunch ourselves
half-sick of apples, scoop one after another
from the overflowing bowl, grab them from the tree.
Every year grow bored of being sent to gather
windfalls for mum’s endless pies and chutneys.

Lost in leaves, swaying on his ladder
dad would pull more fruit from upper branches.
Store some, tissue-cossetted, for winter, in cool
corners of the cellar, turn its cobwebbed darkness
heady with their sweet-sharp cidery smell.

Now I pick my apples
out of supermarket piles.
I eat them every month, in any season,
apples from Chile or Australia or Portugal.
They do not taste as I remember them.

Not just weather, as hailstones spot
summer drought peppering dust,
scuttering on the window, like change.

Not day and night    or the wheel
of seasons         turning tides,
or the susurration of sand and shore.

More the change of new life
the first scream    the sigh of relief
or the empty hollow of the final breath.

Whether we evolved from monkeys or not, evolution does have a large scale of adaptations you can use..I always thought every day life is evolutionary..

FROM SCRATCH

Week 23 Change

Transplant

Not sure I got the Elizabeth Jennings style but am amazed I have managed to write anything at the moment. It is definitely a first draft!

Putting your life on hold
(7 Ps of caring)

it takes a lot of patience to be a carer

you will need to pace yourself through
the incessant calls on your time:
I need my cardigan, the TV remote,
my cup of tea is has gone cold

caring takes perseverance when calling
the doctor, dentist, bank manager

prioritise all those little tasks and ignore
what you can leave until tomorrow

find some time in your day to pamper
yourself, even if only for five minutes
brush your hair again, read the next page
in Jeffery Archer’s last novel Adam and Eve

pray for a good night’s sleep

when all else fails write it all down
in a poem or eat a bar of chocolate

Sorry it’s another poem on a theme I’ve come back to again and again in my writing. I am very happy and fulfilled everyone, don’t worry. Still exploring how to name and write about certain emotions though. I’d be especially interested to know what you think about the title. I’m not sure I captured Jenning’s style, I haven’t read enough but I did try. I decided not to go with her habit of capitalizing at the beginning of lines though, it felt wrong for me.

Not something we had to name

The house is very quiet now. You find the days
emptier than before. Time to hear the birds tweet,
rustle the trees’ leaves, a lone motorbike drone
its way down the street, someone emptying their bins,
the washing machine getting ready to spin its load.
It’s not that I am keeping count, as when I was a child
and sick, I would lie awake, tired and disgruntled, noting
all the sounds from the outside world as a list to pass
the time until my mother would be home. Now I am

the mother and still, I count down the time or not, rather
notice the things I did not notice before when playful
chatter filled this house with clatter and games, singing.
Sometimes, a fight broke out or someone cried in sadness
or in laughter or in both and love was a physical presence
in every one of the rooms and not something we had to name,
to say out loud in practiced speech, to sign in handwritten
missives we write to remind us to take the time. I am not
complaining. The house is quiet now, the days stretch
in an infinity of time for myself, the holy grail I searched for
before and never found. Funny how the things we want most
end up the most hollow. But I am not bitter and I am not complaining.

What mother could complain to see her fledglings fly?
What mother could begrudge them their chance to leave the nest,
fly south and become their own selves? The house is very quiet
now. The days emptier than before stretch out like this question;
what will you do now? Who will you be when Mother is a noun
that no longer takes up every part of who you are, but leaves
space for other selves to breathe. Who will you be, now?
What will you do with time to listen to the birds sing?

Just before tea and bed
a splash of oil swirled
slow  still  in a dark puddle
his face illuminated
by a bright pit light
strung above his head

the dark chassis of a car
drip dripped dark rust tannin
like tea leaves left in a cup
as if it were his own blood
falling into the water below
an upside down rainbow
with all the luck tipping out

he rescued a frog once
cradled it in his oily hands
brought it to the surface
let me touch it’s cool skin
told me to make a wish

 A radio raps until tea time
 men in smart chinos
plug in huge silent cars
no oil, no frogs,
no rainbows.

For Falling In Love With A Mole.

Mother said,
Remember to wear velvet.
Pretend you like worms
at least to start with.
Do not meet at night
in a remote field,
establish boundaries early on
suggest a first date at dusk
in a suburban garden.
Forget about open plan living
and clean shag pile.
Do not disturb on digging days,
but look impressed when
he emerges nose first from a heap of soil.
Don’t tell your father about the lawn
and remember there is always light
at the end of tunnel if you are both in love.

This is very much a work in progress (as is the wood, now I come to think of it!).

It takes time to fall in love with a wood

Begin with a shrug.  This wood
does not exist. How can you love it?

Frown as you trudge the edges of their plan
your boots heavy with mud and pessimism.

Feel a flicker of hope. Imagine other landscapes
emerging from acres of exhausted cabbage fields.

Marvel as, month by month, hundreds of people
plant thousands and thousands and thousands of trees.

Notice how quickly hazel and blackthorn settle
how butterflies arrive to explore the margins.

Delight in the thickening of oaks
in silver birch already twice your height.

See hares. Hear woodpeckers. Let yourself
believe in nightingales.

Stop Looking and He Will Appear

Present yourself truthfully
Give criticisms gracefully
Speak praises succinctly
Bake cookies cautiously
Read Pratchett as well as Asimov (and discuss)
Call, don’t text
When ready, reveal yourself ‘one star at a time’

Hi Folks. Hoping this is week 23.!! The prompt is to write a poem about Change and if you want to add a little extra challenge to that then acknowledge the style of Elizabeth Jennings whose centenary it is. Have fun. I will endeavour to check in but we are getting nearer to moving date…

Ah, why do I ever say I’ll be available? Of course then there had to be massive student protests. Of course my daughter had to leave her high school to find riot police and gas on the streets and no bus to take her to her dance classes. Of course she had to spend 4hrs trying to get home, thank god with a friend, before I managed to reach them and navigate the beleaguered public transport system till they were both where they should be. And of course she then didn’t want to go to school on Friday and risk it all again. I am with all my heart behind the young and brave sixth form protestors who have been treated with violence and disregard by the authorities. But I am also kind of hoping they won’t be protesting again tomorrow. Anyway, here is my effort about falling in love with a book…

Seven steps to falling in love with a book

Do not read it because you should.

Do not read it because it won a Pullitzer or a Booker or the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Do not read it for its 5-star Goodreads review or its no.1 bestseller status, or because
it made Reese Whitherspoon’s bookclub or has now been adapted into a major motion picture.

Read it because it makes your heart sing.
Read it because it leaves you hungry as a new-sprung caterpillar.
Read it because you want to know more.

When you are ready to begin, have broken the spine and ceased inhaling the heady
fresh-print scent of its brand new pages, choose your spot. Somewhere comfy and quiet.
Leave your phone far enough away you will only get up for emergencies.

Tea or coffee, water or juice will help with hydration. Biscuits, cake or chocolate are not
obligatory but may help create a propitious environment. Falling in love takes time.
Do not feel guilty if this is the case, it is okay to do only this for a while.

When you are done, when you have fallen so completely you cry when you reach the last word
when it feels as if the characters are your friends and you have seen the insides of their minds
and still love them, share it. Share it with your neighbour. Share it with your bookclub or your auntie or that girl you met on the bus who said she loved poetry. Share it with the world.
Of all the many things it should be, true love should never be selfish.

i have fallen in love

with my physiotherapist
his mile, the twinkle, in his eyes,

The way

he cones in to my room
leans against the doorpost.

i have falleen in love with his teeshirts.

a slogan on each.

i was so impressesd

Oxford University embalsened across his chest.

Did you go to Oxford? I asked.

no, he said,

ibought it from a charity shop.

how we laughed.

he is not a greek god 
yesterday it was Florida University.
😄
’I have a collection, he said.

cam’t wait fortoday’s visit.

I used seven lines, seven sentences- a love poem

THE FALL

ps week 21 2026 Tunnel of Life CAW

My sincere apologies. Due to my failure to post a prompt on the 21st we are all out of sink. Jo valiantly stepped in and posted her great nature/emotion prompt a week early. Mary after seeing the rota Almira posted for me, which confirmed her week was next week, prefers to keep her change prompt for next week and has removed it. I’m very sorry for the fuss and confusion. Can I suggest that this week anyone who hasn’t posted yet waits until next week to submit their change poems for Mary? In case she doesn’t check back in till then. In the meantime anyone for who needs or wants  another prompt to chew on (for this week or next)  how about a belated one from me?

Write seven steps to falling in love (with a person, with an animal, with a place, with a book, with yourself, with whatever). The poem should be 7 lines or 7 sentences or if you’re really inspired 7 stanzas. You could stick to a strict seven based meter too or pick any form that involves 7 or multiples of 7 so even a sonnet. 

I hope this is helpful and if it’s not ignore it! I’ll be in the kitchen with a cuppa and a chocolate biscuit later today and tomorrow. Then I will be blissfully absent until Monday, which is my birthday,  as the rest of my family who are not here in Bordeaux with me and my youngest daughter are visiting for the weekend.

love to all h

I will check spelling tomorrow.

  Improvement?

The beautiful venetian  harbour/span>
has been improved.
That is their word for it, 
Not mine
Now it is spotless, surrounded by restaurants
And many of the old characterful buildings
have been swept away along with the charm
and history..
The Minoans were here
Their walls still are
Towering above our heads
What would they make of it all?
The mosque is still glowing on the newlly paved square.
Displaying the work of budding young artistS.
The Maritime museum still stands next to the Fort.
But where is the bar where we danced the sousta, 
the syrtosl
the mantinades,the kalamatianos?
Does anyone dance them now?
Where is the stall where you could buy
a tasty lunch of meat and chips
for a few drachmas?
The restaurants predominate,</span
Their tills clicking.

I wrote to Mary’s prompt but if Jo later gives another prompt, I will write something for her also.

And, nobody wrote anything to my belonging/unbelonging prompt, except Wendy!!!

It was the week of Wendy’s fall news and ironically only poor Wendy wrote to my prompt.

Anyway, I will try to think of something better for my next prompt and in the meantime, I post my poem about change.

CHANGE OF MOMENTUM

Inspiration drawn from my neighbours’ lawns, which are not entirely recovered from the drought.

The forgiveness of grass

the slightest caress of rain

grass opens its burnt heart
unfurls greenness
tender   hopeful

seems to need so little
as if it will struggle up again
however cruel the damage

yet in the haze of new green
are scars, dust-bare patches
where nothing is growing

I think about grass as I stand drenched
in another brief downpour
of your attention

just enough, I expect you think,
to keep things alive

it is possible to die in increments
I will not always be
a velvet lushness under your feet

Not sure this is quite right but. back in the saddle.

As I’m driving the river road home

I catch her right in my headlights
her long silken ears prick to attention
her whole body turns rigid.

Underneath her coat I imagine
her fascia trembling, her heart
beating faster than a Shinkansen.

She is the caught in the bright arc
of articfical sun, so unexpected.
As if never in this life has she ever

known less how to behave, how to
breathe, how to keep moving, how
to survive, how to thrive.

She is beautiful and fragile.
And not fearless but something braver
for all this last only seconds before

she rushes headlong into the verge-dark
headlong into a future full of more moments
like this one. Or scarier.

2026.09.27 Week21 It depends where you fall

Patchwork Cat
My cat is a patchwork cat
A tortoiseshell, once a stray,
She hung about the garden,
Sad and thin, and thinner everyday
So we took her in, that wild-eyed child
And gained her trust and fed her
She’s a mixture of all the fears she’s faced
her experiences all mixed together,
the alley cats and fights and brawls
and lives lived by her mother,
they’re forged in her and made her brave
for the battles fought by her father,
Bits of ginger cat on one leg
and tabby on her tum,
tiger stripes, and on her face
the trace of a coal black tom,
There’s remnants of a Persian cat
in her full and bushy tail,
but a sly and wily light in her eye
from the Siamese on the hill,
my cat is a patchwork cat alright
a collection of feline mischief,
she’ll win you over with her charms
and purr and ask for more,
but just when you believe she’s yours
she’s off and out the door!

Owls

Last night owls were hooting
conjuring ghosts amongst shadows and chimneys
stringing the trees together
with their soft flapping

my grandparents garage
smelt of petrol and foxes
the skeletons of spiders
hung   balletic  hinge like
suspended for ever
in sunlit dust

blown birds eggs
lay in wooden drawers
curated in freckled order
from the palest blues and green
to shades of speckled brown

the silent chant of unsung songs and  tiny cracks in their delicate shells lit an empty
long ago world
the husks of childhood
never quite finished

a faint vibrato over the fields
melting into the black wax night
made me think of him

I have been away so long I am ashamed to show my face in the kitchen but could secretly really do with a chocolate bourbon. I hope that’s okay. And I hope you are all well? After seeing the news about Wendy, I feel the need to do a head count – serves me right for being such a summer flake. I did move from Brittany to Bordeaux (at least for term time) so that was a bit of an upheaval and has stolen almost all my writing time away from me. Sort of settled now and back in the saddle. I will read through some poems and get back in the groove. Missed you all. x x love h