A gift

We are the only customers. In a street of restaurants there are only a few people in each. It's lunchtime, I'm sure evenings are busier. After our meal the chef chats with us, about how he orders his spices direct, his son who is studying to become a doctor, the regional variety of cuisine, how all meals are celebrations. 

My neighbours have their food delivered in boxes, I often see them on their doorsteps, a set of pre-prepared ingredients, ready to unpack and assemble, like flat-pack furniture. Food for two, or maybe one. Chosen from a menu offering neatly boxed, consistent, reliable diversity. Italian, Indian, Chinese, Mexican. 

The chef tells us he has chosen not to have peshwari naan on the menu, only plain and garlic naan. Western taste, he says, is to have everything sweet, but some plainness helps you appreciate the subtle mix of spices in a dish. 

under grey skies

a gust of wind delivers

pin-pricks of drizzle

a gift of 

hot chai tea

Blithe Spirit Vol 36 No 2 May 2026

almost 60 years

since the first bootprint

on the moon

am I still capable

of gazing up in awe?

Blithe Spirit Vol 36 No 2 May 2026

silent
for twelve years
he clears his throat
and
apologises

Presence Issue 84 March 2026

an abandoned

building...

I play with

the idea

of going missing

Presence Issue 83 November 2026

under a pile

of legal papers

a seed packet

Hope: The British Haiku Society Member's Anthology 2025

things

my hands remember...

how to

make stale bread

into comfort food

Blithe Spirit Vol 35 No 4 November 2025

Becoming

I'm softening, letting go. Now I'm something drifting, buoyant, almost weightless, almost liquid, floating and warm. At first it's disconcerting, but then I let my mind relax too. My friend is disturbed, asks me not to go. I try to explain that it's alright, I'm not really going anywhere, just changing, that it's a good thing that's happening. He softens a little too but then resists, stays solid.

 

thunderclouds

piling 

white 

pillows

on a blue bedsheet 

Blithe Spirit Vol 35 No 4 November 2025

Someone Else’s World 

I will not fight. I reject the propaganda. They call it “fake news” now, I know, but that's just a rebrand. It's as old as war. A tale of how to be acceptable, a narrative, a script for those who find themselves unsure, confused, afraid. 

Today, I read another moving story of one who, having bravely conquered illness, is welcomed back into the world of the well. The names change but the outline is always the same: the challenge, the battle, the victory, the smiling portrait of an inspiration. 

I don't fit the role and so remain in exile, outside the walls. I overhear the questions, with their tone of suspicion. “Why won't she fight it?” “Is she really ill?” “I get tired too, you have to push through, don’t you?” “Why doesn't she just try harder?” “Doesn't she want to get better?” “It's all in her head really, isn't it?”   

I don't fight, but when this thing makes its malign existence known, with the first shimmer of migraine aura, or the chill before an advancing wave of fatigue, I give it a nod of recognition, sit down, and go on living in my peaceful world. 

contrails
across a clear sky
in seconds
someone else's world
reduced to rubble 

Drifting Sands Haibun Issue 33 September 2025

in the darkness
of a summer night
a halo
of green leaves
around a streetlight

Blithe Spirit Vol. 35 Number 3 August 2025

in the end
there is no need
for commentary
just embers dancing
in the night sky

Presence Issue 82 July 2025

a kaftan
in psychedelic colours
in retirement
she re-discovers
peace and love

a new flower
added to the bouquet
in remembrance
a sunflower
among the poppies

Blithe Spirit Vol.35 Number 2 May 2025

Not Dying

It's a strange kind of limbo, chronic illness, not dying and yet not recovering. I've slipped into another world. When I visit the world of the well, which I rarely do, I find it a whirl of colour and light and sound all around me, making me dizzy and breathless. A ride that I need to get off. A world in frantic movement, rushing towards... What? Why? 

I used to live there too, caught up in it and spun around to its hectic tempo. A dance it seemed impossible to resist, like a gale force wind. Most people are whisked past, autumn leaves, too fast to make eye-contact. A few offer brief glances, in their expression is something like regret, maybe concern, before they are flung into the air by the next gust. 

I retreat, watch from a window, from a place that is steady, peaceful, slow. Grateful for the shelter of what might appear to be a prison or monastic cell, sentenced and confined by a profound lack of energy to this contemplative life. 

winter storm
the ferry crossing
indefinitely postponed

Blithe Spirit Vol.35 No.1 February 2025 

a dream
about the summer
of love
deep in this
winter of hate

Blithe Spirit Vol.35 No.1 February 2025