Don ran after Freya. Violets spilt and daffodils fell like trumpets not walls.

“I’m catching up. I’m faster”

Sunlight fell like a rapier out of the clouds striking her necklace dazzling him to halt

falling hand across his chest

a scream

“a fatal bolt though my heart"

on fighting a stormy position at sea

a bird called from a stone promontory

my haste and sweat with sail and oar left me

equipped to live and tell you this story

soft looked eyes above ruby red stained full beak

evil magic trapped this girl in feathers

her fragile webbed feat chained to stone where bleak

weather froze her blood and hardened feather

in that tempest my shirt and sail all torn

arms left feint from exertion agony

her call a draw not cawl but a lovers song

and I pulled oar in a sense mutiny

smashed into rocks. splinters. boat no more

bloodied and cold . resolve spent.she one wing

bent to prevent me slipping off the shore

I found in her shelter some words to sing

carry me high and we can sweetly nest

or perhaps a kiss this curse will arrest

bee sings so pleasantly around a buttercup

resting place a stop and a sup

a field of tiny suns swing to the beat

children making chains pick them up

smatter of yellow under a friends chin

and in lines the butter lovers gather up

petals square on four make a cross

rely on thin green line to hold them up

colours Buzz the air all mellow

a bee passing by backs that up

A dinghy battled it's best against the wave. Bow different to stern without a right side to speak of. An old man muttered over one side understanding that the fish might listen and certain St. Peter was not. The boat managed to creak a reply.

Other times lines sang in the wind trailing the vessel . There was song aboard and the oars shared too. These days watching lines with cataract eyes had to give way to dragging nets thrown over ... the bad side. Battered from decades of tie up to piers the edge is as uneven as a graveyard with the smoothness of a loved head stone . Appropriate dead fish came on board over it.

Hauling in again for today. The sun faded polypropylene tightened in it's twist. The rope grey, green and brown where the knots tied to make rhombuses lay in his hands. His fingers swollen at the joints looked like sides of the diamonds cut from the net. Bones forced set angles where joints swelled like lumps in cords. They might unravel in the dark one day. But on fishing days they would tighten being impossible to untie.

A creak of knots and it was cast again in the lake. Ernest sat down watching the plastic play out after the sinking weighted organic fibres. The blue synthetic after the brown now lost to the dark beyond the dregs of reflected day. Tempted to sing

"out to sea my baited beauty

hey ho haul in silver bounty

boys turn to me

boys turn to me

count on board the fishes"

He did not count. Did not sing . Instinct ruled grief and then tie off . Row a ways pull the nets in some internal conversations that drifted into dreams and recall. The past when hands like his, with his, but younger and unbound . Lifted him and the lines from under to over and into the boat. All shifting the number of caulked boards wet and those clinkered dry .

The days brightness gave out to a reflection of fish scales. The setting light defining the grey underbelly of Pisces some-place above. His boat is lower in the water. The end of day in this boat with his boys then rolled up like a herring fillet. Them 5 to 25 years age. Him a permanent old man seen by dead fish eyes. Bodies younger and at least one of his boys alongside singing over the good side while making small string nets. Knots he had taught them.

The net felt heavier hauled in whilst the boat rose in the water.

A fish thrashed at his feet and with useless hands it became both untangled and a temporary part of the sky. Diamonds on hands cracked the destiny and love. Rings around thumbs tallied the hauls. One hand shielded the glare so Ernest could see enough to power his bones home.

Somebody or some kindness pushed a strong wind into his back. He named it sacrifice .

throng of birds in song

beat their wings and

the wind sings

a hundred names only

aviators can know

hollow shafts hold the

softest Kerstin to

crack open gigatons

in spirals that swoop

in hoops around a dirty

globe washes itself in

the collection

of sky shaken to puddles

between roosts of choirs 

in flocks

oh robin in the tree

one beady eye on me

the other

a bother

for the black bug

wings wrapped snug

on leaf of the Lilac tree

under which we drink our tea

to my eldest I turn

and a story is born

dear child keep strong

sing loud and long

yon robin has proud chest

for he sang without rest

to save a princess

'Dad!!!!!!!!'

It's true. for once the bird was dour

lived in Royal ground. Feathers brown

singing to please the princesses crowd

until. Horror. Illness. Proclaimed loud

'Princess was dying having lost

love for life broken hearts cost'

little bird he loved with all his heart

and by her window a song did start

inside in a week sickly state

to her beat did the tune relate

and morbid promise was made

that it was to be her final refrain.

the bird sang through the day

and through the night. stay

by her and steady stave

no food or drink did it crave.

For on that wooden sill

a dirty splinter a thorn ill

pressed ever closer into chest

of that songbird that took no rest.

slowly the blood began to seep

and single flow set to creep

along the ledge up to edge

of drop onto sickly hair

shocking the poorly girl sitting there

her eyes filled with pity for another

that song of love from red chest cover

over fidelity, hope, courage and caring

that lifted her to desire life sharing.

A rush of her own blood carried her

to pull that splinter from the feather

stained forever red

for a life, by love, led.

'Load a Bllx Dad'

Beyond bewildered that one of class

empowered by playing politics.

Dare now to claim ground so far distance

from democratic vote as good practise .

Rule; a shameful parade dressed in colours

and ideology popular hued

resplendently stained by party failures

to engage despite pressed powers used.

Influence from Baron's of paper print

devoted to preserving the city state.

Machiavelli and power of the prince

Used against democracy as vile hate

That we demos, the people, maintain

the laws that protect as one, the same

sulphurs assault the air rocks rumble like a gut

birds thrash into the sky racing land beasts in flight

lakes shiver in their surprise Baekdu opens his lands