Doubtist Books - Poetry - A year of Mondays

A year of Mondays 

(Being a sequence of haiku written weekly on Mondays throughout 2021 and originally posted on twitter.com)

Monday 4 January

Low sun, long shadows.

The girls collect ice slivers

To smash into shards.

Monday 11 January

I open the door

To inhale the world, but all

I taste is the air.

Monday 18 January

A crushed Carling can

On the Forbidden Island:

Flotsam or jetsam?

Monday 25 January 

Scraping moss from logs:

What good luck to be able

To feel frost through gloves.

Monday 1 February

Cracked cromlech capstone,

If I'm not here when you split,

Will you scream or sigh?

Monday 8 February

From a storm-damaged

Hawthorn, ice baubles dangle

Over the river.

Monday 15 February 

Beyond the bluestones,

The old mill built from them: no

TV crew for you.

Monday 22 February 

The dunnock and I

Converse: whistling curt warnings

To one another.

Monday 1 March

Egg, egg, egg, egg, egg,

Egg, egg, egg, egg, egg, egg, egg;

Egg, egg, egg. Egg, egg.

Monday 8 March

Tapping sycamores 

For sap; drill, hose, demijohn:

Dripping liquid spring.

Monday 15 March

Sodden orange log

Beneath the shed's foundations:

Softer than butter.

Monday 22 March

One hen less last night;

I hunt a nest by first light

But find her plucked corpse.

Monday 29 March

Beneath ivy leaves

In an ash crown between streams

The tawny owl dreams.

Monday 5 April

The patient robin

Waits till I put down my pick

And swoops for a grub.

Monday 12 April

Barafundle Bay:

Spring sun kisses sunburnt lips

While sea breeze licks ice.

Monday 19 April 

On a mossy rock

With a river-water moat:

This spring's first bluebells.

Monday 26 April

Black cracks part hard dirt,

Frost's kiss still twinkles at dawn,

And the river yawns.

Monday 3 May

Bank Holiday storms:

One cock, locked out of his coop,

Crows from three AM.

Monday 10 May

Dieback-riddled ash

Rattles in the southwest wind.

We discuss its fate.

Monday 17 May

The four Vorwerk chicks,

As yet too young to be sexed,

Blissfully peck oats.

Monday 24 May

Each ash log I stack

Seems by its slippery skin

To want unstacking.

Monday 31 May

The papillon's drawn

Back down the public footpath:

The rabbit corpse calls.

Monday 7 June

Late-hatched spring midges

Make a meal of me. I light

A fire with wet wood.

Monday 14 June

Light late. The dog barks

At a couple on the bridge;

The woman just laughs.

Monday 21 June

I trap the squirrel

That stripped my horse chestnut's bark –

Unexpectedly.

Monday 28 June

Spotty the goldfish 

Turned loose in the small millpond

Got good at hiding.

Monday 5 July

White bindweed trumpets

Sounding summer, their funnels

Filling up with rain.

Monday 12 July

Thick mist creeping in

To every tendril and frond.

July Botrytis.

Monday 19 July

The heatwave breaks slow

And a lake begins to form

Under the sofa.

Monday 26 July

Winter vomiting

Virus arrives in July.

Nature is healing

Monday 2 August

The silkhorns adjust

To life without their mother:

A power-struggle.

Monday 9 August

Flatulent horses

Patiently carry children

Along the D-roads.

Monday 16 August

Plastic pedalos

Bobbing on the reservoir.

A heron glides by.

Monday 23 August

Like stars at gloaming,

The rowan berries' burning

Heralds summer's end.

Monday 30 August

Metal-detecting,

I find a cockchafer grub:

My childhood disgust.

Monday 6 September

The sun is shining.

The children are back in school.

The sun hates children.

Monday 13 September

Fly-tipped bicycle,

This sodden September day

Did not deserve you.

Monday 20 September

Weatherproofing sheds:

Sloppy white varnish versus

Hordes of harvestmen.

Monday 27 September 

The drains I unblocked

On the weekend are busy:

Water is afoot.

Monday 4 October 

Among slippy leaves,

Slight shifts of light and colour:

Frogs are everywhere.

Monday 11 October

The humming of bees,

The mortar mixing machine,

And the cocks crowing.

Monday 18 October 

Bedraggled flagpole.

Thirteen chickens, damp outside.

Two cocks in the pot.

Monday 25 October

Lost my mobile phone.

Couldn't write haiku on it.

This week is forfeit.

Monday 1 November 

Flooded-lawn lurgy.

I wake with heat rash, despite

The open windows.

Monday 8 November 

A blanket of mist

No activity will shift.

Everything looks tired.

Monday 15 November 

An open gate where

There's usually a closed gate

Serves as a warning.

Monday 22 November

Moss on the mill wall,

Warm and moist; moss on the mill

Roof: encased in ice.

Monday 29 November 

Sick hen safe in shed

But one free-range silkhorn less

At torchlit counting.

Monday 6 December 

Quarantined again,

Homeschool returns – on the rug

By the wood burner.

Monday 13 December 

The public footpath 

Streams. Summer's soggy saplings

Shed their firstshot leaves.

Monday 20 December 

City winters spend

No less or more outdoors, but

Different equipment.

Monday 27 December 

Sick hen now got well

Fed oats out back, while bad cock

Boils in the stock pot.