So you want cliches !

Saturday mourning writer's block

hoping the tutor might unlock

th latent talent squaring the circle

frantically active more than it looks -

a baker's dozen cooking the books.

(New Writing South, Crawley Library, 3/9/23)

Holes in my spinach

(on allotment not plate).

Maybe pigeons or bugs?

Reluctantly I used some bait -

one hundred nineteen dead slugs.

We wear the clothes of our time and place

and cut our hair and shave or not

very much as others do.

We eat the food of our time and place,

romanticise some holiday spot

for something to look forward to.

We watch the films of our time and place,

TV soaps and murder plots

to note the tell-tale killer clue.

We think the thoughts of our time and place

imbibing those acquired by lot

from birth to form our point of view.

As times and places change, no wonder

normality's no longer what

it used to be but something new.

The dreams that swim in rivers of sleep

gleam silver through the surface, glide

downstream towards the flowing deep

of troubled currents in the tide.

In oceans of unconsciousness

the nightmares hide beyond the light,

ride luminescent, motionless

till they float upward in the night.

At dawn the flying fish that pierce

the waves of memory may strand

themselves; the subtle colours, fierce

eyes dim; their bones crumble to sand.

Our dreams are not for keeping; they

dive waters of forgetfulness

with bright scales irridescent in spray.

Dreams, like fish, should be always fresh.

I thought it looked like a rat or mouse

running so quickly across the grass

but when I saw it near the house

and again it ran away very fast,

I could hardly credit that it was a bird -

a juvenile robin, breast not yet red.

Why didn't it fly? Just seems absurd.

A cat will catch it. Probably dead.

With pearls for teeth and ruby lips,

sleek jet black hair and emerald eyes,

with golden shoulders, ivory hips,

pale opal breasts and silver thighs

your beauty is so near divine,

no need for jewels, diamond mine.

"them", "they" and "their" for a single person

are ungrammatical and confusing

because those words are essentially plural.

The transgender world requires using

some new words for the new situation -

something singular just by fusing

"he" and "she" to breathy "shhe",

"him" and "her" to "hem" and "hir"

and "his" and "hers" to "hirs".

A little practice will make it clear(s) !