Ian Stuart

5 Haiku

My phone spies on me – rings random strangers, just for fun, sniggers in my ear. There’s no business… Life? No rehearsal – improvise, work for the laugh – smile as the curtain falls. Book shop Shoulder to shoulder, wait to be bought, browsed, read, returned to the shop. The cafe has closed down –Continue reading “5 Haiku”

Parliament of cats

A piece of empty, barren ground overgrown and patched with nettles, broken bricks and sunflowers. This is where they come. Stepping deftly from the shadows they nudge the grass aside and find a place – Manxies, Marmalades, and haughty Siamese, rag eared warriors and plump eunuchs, queens and catlings hissing, spitting, rowling till peace isContinue reading “Parliament of cats”

Great Jarb

You Gotta!

The young man of great wealth

I did everything he asked of me. Modest in all my dealings, I killed no-one slept with no man’s wife, spoke truth and thought on heaven. Then he said “Sell everything you have and give it to the poor.” A blow across the face could not have hurt me more. My life of cautious virtueContinue reading “The young man of great wealth”

My Time

“I want to spend my time with you”

Junkyard

Down the dusty, data-blown back streetsof my computer’s hard drive liesthe dumping ground – the placewhere failed poems go to die,and fragments too, which make me feelembarrassed or ashamed –lines leading nowhere, overgrownwith lush, excessive, choking adjectives;a rusting heap ofContinue reading “Junkyard”

The Fetler

Buffalo shoulders and thighs like oak trees,

In the Beginning

God had a helicopter view

MH17

They fell out of the clouds like stones, smashing the sunflower fields, splitting, spilling on the hard summer roads. Their lives fell with them – letters, clothing, photographs, sunscreen, lipsticks, bags of sweets, passports to witness who they were and what they had become. They will not rise up, bones whole, flesh healed, brushing petalsContinue reading “MH17”

A transport of delight

When I was four I fell in love with trams. I loved the shape – a double decker cigar the glossy cherry-and-cream paint job the trapeze on top to catch electricity from the wires. IContinue reading “A transport of delight”