Cack-footed

A runner I know tried to write a poem using his GPS watch
He glided effervescently around a map, until
When viewed online, his run read POETRY in capital letters.
It took a few seconds to work out;
The P wasn't initially clear -
and that's the most important letter, at least to me -
It looks like bad form.

Reverse postcard

One strange thing that happened recently:
Dad's put speakers in the kitchen, connected to the TV.
I went to make a cup of tea,
A traumatised voice begged me not to

I read Alice Oswald's Falling Awake
Before falling asleep, and dreamt
How she might read it:
Thought you might like it.

I haven't booked train tickets to come and visit you,
I've been expending all my energy
Opposing Dad's speakers in notes
And writing protest poems.

I loaded up the browser just now
I went to buy them
A cup of tea
Begged me not to

On first hearing of the Anthropocene, but not yet knowing what it was

It's very sunny this morning
there's spring in my steps
until I realise that you're flying to Cuba -
look, there you are, trailing cloud -
but at least there's still a lot of day,
so much day, in fact.
This is how it feels, walking home as everyone
else is on their way away.
I am getting close, though
you are getting farther away
but not less close, right.
I'm living all of these assurances.
There is always a sunny break and
the prospect of poetry, until the
clouds come and everything gets tired.

Dad asks me if I'll go to a lecture on faith
and climate change this evening. 'I can't,
but let me know what they decide.'

There is a dusky harlequin finding its feet on the windowsill;
half-eaten by dust, it can only take off on
to its side. Within seconds of being blown back
up, it's on its wings again. I can never get a lady
bird fully upright, and though I would love it,
I can't stretch this out into a short story.

Checking departure listings to find your flight,
I'm imagining how excited I might be to be preparing for
a BA flight to Moscow at 8.40 am.
This kind of thing is exactly why I am grounded.
My Wikipedia history will never be anything
other than poem fodder.

A notification tells me it's less than one minute until
my alarm, Get the first shave, will sound.
'Do you think you will ever satisfy any of your ambitions?'
I ask myself as the countdown continues.