A Son's Sestina My dead father rests in cliched peace that in single #life, escaped him, most of the time. Ashes now, but I imagine his sleep to be good, like a man found not guilty in a trial. He left me a large aspidistra pot, stuffed full of #poems, on each an avian mark. Chipped, it also bears scratches and a mark I recall from youth, five letters spelling peace, initials too, (Peter and Olivia Thompson), ‘Peace POT.’ Two poor writers, with little sense of time, artists of their present, but blind to future’s trial, where one endures, the other silenced in sleep. After mother died, I watched Father in his sleep, gaunt, tear streaked face, and sensed the mark of Caine upon his soul. On trial, not knowing if he would find a peace, his flesh in limbo, stuck for all time, slow braised in hellish casserole pot. Words, like fragile shoots from a flower pot, grew slowly, and brought comfort to his sleep. Pantoums, sestinas and sonnets beat time, conducted by his pen to indelibly mark each #poem with a white dove, of peace, an avian army of advocates that argued at his trial and won. I know now why each #poem and all the trial attempts, he threw into that pot, as if he knew would grow a protective kind of peace, that prepared me for the nightmares of my sleep. Writer warrior, his sword but a pen, to make his mark, and create a memory of her time. With each precious #poem I read, over time, I feel closer to one I never could trial, a mother, whose breast my milk teeth couldn’t mark, who now, in poetry preserved, would never go to pot. How I relish those times, whilst in my sleep, he wrote of Mother's strokes throughout my slumbered peace. When my time has come for blissful peace, and I begin my trial of eternal sleep, don't grieve, just mark me, please, with a #poem in your pot.

First #haiku Love First love etches deep, the groove is always open 
never filled again

Ode to Ocd I write best when I need a rest
 Coz I wrote beast when I meant breast
 I write breast. Breast is right. Breast is best. Best I rest. Bet I’m right
 Write Breast. Right Breast. Write like a right tit

A Photograph of Mum, found in a box marked 'to keep' Soft sunlight fills faces fixed in pleasure, focused by dad, snapped with minimum fuss. Captured in our youthful flat-bellied pose. Days gone, frail yellowed paper now holds us. Behind us in frame, young vine shoots, painted shed door shines inky black, green lawn fresh mown. We stare into the lens, futures faced, vibrant mother, son’s strong arms flexed in flippant fold. But spinning earth foreshortens future’s scope. Shutters stand still, old age needs no record of loved ones lost, or grief that brooks no hope. Steadfast selfless care brings its own reward, memories, image-blankets for our sleep, held close at heart marked precious, one to keep.

Swimming with butterflies We were bunched leaves, friends on an oaken branch, in the sunshine of shared summer, ended when Autumn welcomed our fall to wet earth. Yet we shared a space, between twigs and sodden turf, wind blown butterflies, curled swimmers in the breeze, upwards, sideways,never sure of the final rest. So, when buffeted by cold winds of dead winter, and your hands grip an inkless pen, think not of dank sullen earth because I will think of you, and warm days I swam, with butterflies.