Winter Trails

'Mad Monday' - Dec. 23rd.

Dark flood at a junction,
rippling in wind which sways
empty poplar tops,
churned by pressing dread of weighty tyres,
running back into that grey mirror...

Dour shawls sliding across a grey sky.
Monochrome studies: pigeon flocks
scatter and reform, wheel over tree silhouettes,
settle in close line on a church roof-ridge.

Concrete troughs of wintered flowers,
dinky and irrelevant, shiver and flap
under gnarled thorn boughs.

We trawl the 'Mad Monday' labyrinths,
half list, half impulse, following noses
into dead ends, rescued by the staff
pointing their wizard ways to troves of deals.

Elves, dwarves, lake-men and orcs,
wargs awkward on two legs: all shuffling along
looking puzzled in Wilco's.

And out into the night of Christmas lights
strung across pedestrian ways
under full moonface of the tall town clock,
milling and standing knots of crowd
talking of rolling or cooking joints.

For howling winds of night all died away,
and lashing rains of morning are no more.
People slow and smiley
full of various cheer.

Festival's caravan at the last inn
before the terminus of Hobbiton,
dancing a slow waltz at the 'Prancing Pony'.

........