Overland camping group

The semi-circle of camping chairs

focusses on the cooking food

(more tuna and stir fry cabbages)

but also keeps attention glued

on the group itself and avoids the stares

of the gathering local 'savages'.

Like a circle of covered wagons from

the wild west of the USA

the defensive wall keeps the enemy out

and allows us not to give away

food we don't want or lose aplomb

if someone challenges with a shout.

Our culture encourages selfishness

and makes us inhospitable.

Perhaps if we faced outwards instead

we'd find the poor more pitiable

and see spoiled self-indulgence less

important than them being better fed.

We had a date. She wasn't on time.

I waited an hour. She didn't come.

I felt a fool but it's not a crime

and after a year an hour's not long.

The orb web spiders are back outside the kitchen windows

spinning their huge web wonders of concentric circles

like massive shining whorls of insect fingerprints

that trap the morning sun in thirty filaments of silver.

Evening draws the trappers from the window edges

dangling masters in their natural masterpieces.

Such wonders does the Earth provide to those that see.

Nobody loses all the time

"I should be so lucky - lucky, lucky, lucky"

I really don't know where I'm going to put them all.

"For once in my life  . . ." my luck has really changed.

All these prizes I keep winning in the junk e-mails.

' . . . a thousand ships'

It surely wasn't the face alone

that launched a thousand ships.

No doubt the face was beautiful

but not enough on its own.

Beauty in women requires a body

as well as striking facial features,

an undulating tempting figure

to drive a man to folly.

And as for her personality,

her interests, values, wants and dreams, 

her understanding - do they matter?

Not necessarily.

It might be the frequent situation -

no deeper knowledge of character

is necessary to trigger shallow

male infatuation.

The dearth of frankness

The last five incalls have all disappointed:

the first one didn't answer at all;

the next two had faked their online photos;

the fourth advertised from counties away;

the fifth had refused to take "fake money"

and then was assaulted - hence the need

for some sort of voucher rather than cash.

Oh, the deceit, the deceit !

And then Misty Kurtz, she fled.

.

Tweets 9

" . . . . that the night come."

Anticipation of excitement for the sexually active.

Resignation of the daylight for the age-weary passive.

"No bad weather. Just bad clothes."

Coming from Sweden that's them that knows.

The bright sunlight straight ahead

made the dew on the grass shine satin.

Chores are useful to fill up the time;

better being chored than bored.

A magpie flying, white belly shining,

dragging his tail behind him

I had to laugh at the porno video

where the man was fucking the woman's arse

and the woman was yawning from boredom.

DEATH OF A LOVED ONE

is the never-again of seeing, touching, talking to

I still cannot believe I'll never see you more

leaving me unsure of what I'm living for

POETRY

Brave empty words that shrivel to the trivia of everyday life

EPITAPH

That twat that tweets on Twitter

I'm less of an explorer than a discoverer.

If there's any way of doing something wrong,

I'll find it.