Showing you the birds

Each day I run down

The blossom-strewn bank

To the shallow stream - 

Brown stone under pink

And watch the lone bird

Visiting -

Heron, egret, moorhen, crow.

Today I brought you with me

For the first time -

Showed you how we must get low

Under the trees,

Took you to the brown stones

And standing on the pink

We saw not one, but two jewelled mandarins

Together.

I tried to memorize the russet colour,

The white stripes 

But I always think in symbols

And couldn't deny

The imagery here -

Excited I repeated this to you,

Over and over.

I had wanted to show you the 

Chance of it,

The beauty of the birds

But you got to see, instead

How my mind worked

On blossom-strewn banks

Precious,

In the water. 

LJ Ireton

2023

The Collective

I crouch lower

Under the howling wind -

The never tiring traveller carrying a constant cry

From the unprotected ones.

The Garden has been forgotten -

At least from the ground

I can watch the forget-me-nots lift into 

Small 

Blue 

Butterflies.

LJ Ireton

2023

Upon waking

Hammering in the forges

Of sleep

My mind makes

And makes.

How beautiful the glow,

The means -

Some nights the sheen.

But by the same,

Where heat meets disorder 

A torment of shapes -

Strange metals dropped

Upon waking

And still heavy. 

LJ Ireton

2023

For Marshall and Millions

Paws skittering on pavements

Soft ears,

Black panic -

A power barrier of men 

Place themselves 

Between a day

And ebony worlds broken.

Where is the chance for small hearts?

Their charcoal outlines drawn 

On ours.

LJ Ireton

Copyright 2023

A little poem about Felicity

I've tried a few times

To write a poem about Felicity

But it comes out full of cliché:

Princess, Queen, pretty, pretty.

She does snore sometimes,

We converse in chirps

And I call her polar bear

When she shows me her

Snow-white belly -

But can I say that

About royalty?

LJ Ireton 

A little poem about Otus

Otus has long feet,
A small face,
Sand and ginger shapes
Across his fur - like a giraffe 
With stripes the colour of burnt toffee.
Directly in the Sun
His eyes are prehistoric pure amber
But he is dog, often
He purrs with his tongue out
And sniffs everyone.

LJ Ireton 

Things unsaid

I didn't know what I wanted to be

Because 

What I wanted

Was not in the careers library

At school -

There was no section 

On how to be a Disney Princess

Or have success like Madonna

So I said

'Journalist, I guess'

And scrambled through

The next few years

And then more.

It was friends -

Speaking other futures

Out loud,

That changed

'Could' or 'could not'

In my head.

Reality is who you

Listen to - 

I made music about it.

C. LJ Ireton 2023