Day 48
Rain flickers across
my face, tiny tongues of ice
darting through darkness.
Day 49
I went to Barbican today
It made me sad;
All that concrete, concrete and glass
Dull thudding buildings bruise the skyline,
The blank deceptive windows
Throw back at us a leaden sky
Petrol stench from the mouth of a car park
Cement tunnels echoing with
The guttural throat clearing of engines
And ghouls in suits lurked
Sheltering from the rain
Hands cupped like claws around cigarettes.
This is a migraine place
Somewhere I don't want to be.
Day 50
Snapshots from yesterday
Blood like gleaming garnets
Oozing into a syringe
Then topped and bagged
Off to a science lab.
A sterile cubicle one side glass
Like a lidless eye
I face and stare at the wall
Answering questions over the phone.
A windowless meeting
In the basement
Raised voices including my own
Fills me with irritation.
A train journey home
Racing into the night
Soon I'll be on holiday
Escaping to Scotland.
Day 51
England speeds by my window
Mud troubled fields unploughed
Still choked by flood dregs
Looking Like the wastes of Mordor.
As we cut a dash to the north
The fields become mossy green
Skies brightest blue, looking
Like the set of the teletubbies.
Spindle trees throw brain shapes
Soon we'll pass the jagged cliffs
Of the northeast and the writhing sea
Viking stalked and sparkling.
Heading north of the wall.
Day 52
Fresh washed streets glimmer
Under a rinsed clean blue sky;
Edinburgh morning
Day 53
Like a lighting strike
Spider web filaments
Splinter out in front of me
In the indigo dusk of Edinburgh
Magical globes in ethereal waves
Of colour wash over the square.
Elsewhere the city waits, poised
To unfurl like a night flower
Etched with veins, cobbles and close
Winding streets steep and treacherous
Silent places where mists rise
Lights welcome from an inn window
Where hens and stags carouse
Rubbing shoulders with the ghosts of Auld Reekie
Day 54
The sun shines on the last weeks of winter
Where everything looks at its deadest
Waiting to spring back to life.
Speeding home with a heavy heart
Back to work filled with frustrations
That previously weren't there
Why can't good things stay the same?
But the seasons turn
And situations unravel
To be woven again anew
If I don't like the pattern I do have a choice
Unpick it or simply walk away.
There is always an option.
Day 55
Haunted Edinburgh
Under these cobbles
beneath my boot heels
something sinister stirs.
Below the old town,
that crowds with histories
competing for the award for
most mysterious and most macabre,
echo the cavernous vaults,
buried closes of underground dwellings,
once lived in by beggars and thieves,
As we walk in the day light
beneath us still saunter the
beings of the subterranean town:
out of work actors leading round tourists
students dressed up as ghouls and hags
paid to leap out at the gullible and excitable
to dangle a cobweb
or flash the silk red
of the inside of a cloak.
The crystal white sound of water dripping
rings out through the blackness
a darkness thicker than a course woollen blanket.
The pretend spook waits
watching for the torch light
to throw jagged shadows
down the vault in front of him,
heralding the tourists approach.
He glances and spies a little light flicker,
splinter across the damp stone,
but it's not of the torch light
of his colleague getting closer
but something green
phosphorescence
unnaturally glowing,
creeping towards him
like a hand reaching out
with slithering fingers
scratching, scraping,
pincering for him.
When the tourists hear his hideous scream
they think it's all part of the show.
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