NEW ENQUIRIES DAILY 2025

In order of composition, newest at the top. 

Photographs from Ashurst, New Forest unless indicated otherwise.

Surely

it isn't all that surprising

to find a leaf and a cone

together!?

 

 

What bird could fly

with feathers this wet?

No wonder

they cast them away.

According to the Rule of Three

that's the most ponies you'll find in a line.

I know because I frazzled my patience

trying to prove the Rule of Four. 

        

Does this mean

you can park

with impunity

even in the middle of the pavement?

(Apparently not: ‘the "Dark Green Line" at Old Street tube station in London is a painted, dark green line on the pavement that guides people, particularly those with vision impairments, to the entrance of Moorfields Eye Hospital's A&E department. It begins at subway 4 and continues along City Rd. The line provides visual and tactile guidance, making it easier for people to navigate the area.)

 

(Fitzrovia, London)

      

Much as I'd like to be critical

of phones replacing books,

with what do you suppose

I took these photos...

(London)

 

‘It's telling me

I'm not where I am!’

she exclaimed,

as if an app might break the laws of science. 

The rule I deduce is

‘If you’re tree, you don't get chained in’.

Which is quite right:  trees are important,

they should be respected and allowed to roam free.

        

Small?

I guess, but then it is it cuddle pub,

and no one said the cuddling

was an optional extra.

(Amsterdam)

           

What I want to know

Is how do petunias decide

whether to stay plain

or opt for a coloured heart?

 

(Amsterdam)

 

The classical music in this station

might seem a nice touch,

but I was told it was just to stop

young people hanging around.

 

(Wibautmarkt Metro Station, Amsterdam. If true, that’s a sad reflection on perceptions of youth. That said, next day the music was middle-of-the-road balladry. Was that just as effective?)

 

There used to be A TV quiz show

called ‘Where in the World?’

This would had left the panel

scratching their heads...

 

(Amsterdam)

 

If this is

Utopia,

how come it receives

no stars?

 

(Amsterdam – actually a hostel, rather than a hotel as claimed on the notice)

 

This sign wouldn’t work back home

but the nifty Dutch

can ride their bikes two ways at once,

and one of those curved.

(Amsterdam)

 

It’s hardly fair

that a man with such flexible arms

should also have the benefit

of three legs.

I admit

to spilling soapflakes.

But did the floor make the flakes dirty

or the flakes make the floor clean?

 

The only one left undisturbed

by the announcement that the police would be called

was the slumberer who wouldn’t budge

though he hadn’t bought a burger…

(Incident in McDonalds, Kings Cross, London)

 

I guess we need smaller burgers

or bigger mouths.

How hard

can the right decision be?

 

(London Underground) 

 

  

 

I’m about to approach the Approach Estate

on which the pub is called The Approach

even though it’s so close to the middle

it ought to be called The Arrival.

 

(Cambridge Heath, London) 

 

Are these night daisies 

lit by my headlamps - 

‘nighties’ for short –

or just daysies that haven’t gone in?

Were I a playwright

I’d set my next drama

inside the accelerating turbulence

of a kettle.

If these nettles are yellow

in order to warn us

that they don't sting,

I reckon they're somewhat confused.

(Totton: yellow archangel or golden dead-nettle, Lamium galeobdolon) 

CoverMan

looks happier - albeit bemused –

than I would be if stuck down there.

How did it happen?

(Berlin) 

     

Ok this is a Berlin wall

not the Berlin Wall,

not that there's much left of that,

and I quite like this substitute.

(Berlin) 

  

Berlin graffitists are different class

How often does the Times Literary Supplement

get tagged in England?

Or is that a philistine 'J'?

 

(Berlin… I subscribe to the TLS)

 

Anyone can sit on a chair

– assuming there’s room – or a rock, ditto.

The question’s how often

you can sit on a rock on a chair.

(Work by Alicja Kwade in the garden of the Pace/Judin joint gallery, Berlin)

 

We determine the sharpness

of all your teeth

and do so free

if your name is Charlie

 

(Berlin: close to Checkpoint Charlie – now a tourist site, active 1961-89)

                 

 

This jackdaw

is one of many in Berlin

acting as if they’re not just pigeon-sized,

but are pigeons.  

 

                

This jackdaw 

marched his shadow round 

with what I felt was sentimental attachment

only to fly off without it.

 

This jackdaw

kept a sensible distance

from his reflection,

just in case he got caught out of step.

 

(Berlin: jackdaws seem common, I’ve assumed these are male, but the sexes look very similar)

Twenty metres

set against a good deal less than one:

how hard would it be

to lift her up?

 

(The Luftbrückendenkmal (Berlin Airlift Monument) was inaugurated in 1951. Architect Eduard Ludwig designed the 20-metre-high reinforced concrete sculpture in the form of a stylized bridge pillar. It symbolizes the airlift that ensured the survival of West Berliners during the Berlin Blockade during 1948-49)

 

 

I’m not saying

German dogs can read,

but it seems they’re pretty competent

with signs.

(Berlin)  

 

 I don’t believe

they put the holes in blinds

in order to play with the light –

but why not?

(Berlin)

 

I guess you might want a golden gorilla

to scare off any gold thieves

before they could steal it -

but wouldn’t a lion be better?

 

(Berlin – a shop window displays several of these absurd monstrosities…)

 

What we need is bigger bins

to hold the bins that have transitioned

from helping out

to adding to the problem.

 

(Berlin)

 

In case you don't know

where you are

here are three

sufficiently graphic reminders.

 

(Somewhere in Berlin)

 

In a palpably absurd

challenge to optimal head positioning

this hotel feature the biggest and smallest

pillows I’ve ever seen.

 

(Hotel W22, Berlin. In fact I was OK with the small one- but aware that I am odd)

 

Good morning 

security,

here is my whippily 

dangerous belt!

 

(Luton Airport. To be fair, the reason security often asks for belt removal is that some metal buckles can interfere with the images produced by body scanners, making it more difficult to detect concealed objects)

 

Dandelion concerts

are always amazing:

you can bet on the crowd

being blown away.

 

A football shirt

is very nearly a good place to hide

if you miss the ball completely

in front of an open goal.

 

(My video capture of Tyrick Mitchell, of Crystal Palace, after he missed a sitter in the FA Cup semi-final against Aston Villa, 2025)

How many feathers does a fence require

in order to fly?

I suspect the answer’s a big-enough number

that this isn’t much of a start.

In the event of fire

throw a towel on the flames.

If that fails,

try the spray.  

 

(Hotel in King’s Cross, London) 

Even though their delicacy 

doesn't come with brittleness 

I feel there's an affinity 

between petals and eggshells. 

 

(egg box in Penge, London)

 

I claim that the important bricks 

are those that hold things up, 

not the ones that swell towards

their own importance in a frame. 

(Islington, London)

 

I hear it takes an extra day

of driver training

to ensure that the buses of Leeds

can safely pass through the Henry Moore.

 

(Henry Moore's ‘Reclining Woman: Elbow’, 1981, is situated outside Leeds City Gallery)

 

I wonder that Miffy

Doesn’t advertise face cream:

she looks so unaffected

by those seventy years...

 

(Leeds: the exhibition celebrates the cartoon rabbit devised by Dutch artist Dick Bruna in 1955)

 

That’s no problem

I shall stick

to wrapping paper, tracing paper,

newspaper, rice paper…

 

(Leeds University)

                           

I'm not afraid

of swinging,

but that’s a frayed rope

and I am afraid of that. 

 

I’ve sketched in

where I imagine Steve’s widow sits

so that his seat

spells out her name, Eve.

 

(Colbury churchyard, bench dedicated to Steven Cooper – ‘sadly missed’)

Whatever these flowers

we’re going to

almost say

I think they’re now definitively quiet.

(Philip Larkin: ‘The Trees’, 1974 - ‘The trees are coming into leaf / Like something almost being said’)

 

One hardly expects to see

a Rentokil control point fooling around –

but that's the way it seems to be,

even though Red Nose Day isn't until next year.

 

(Totton)

 

It looks as if

the small trees ganged up on the big tree

and now they have it

chopped and trapped for good.

 

Here’s the sign

thoroughly blurred

by the speed of the vehicles

passing across it…

 

(Totton)

 

 

Who can deny

the tug appeal of baby birds

as they stretch with beaks

beyond their head, or even body?

 

 

Nothing cows

the cows of Ashurst

unless it’s that they’re dogged by dogs -

or worried by horses horsing around.

  

It's sad to see cones

denied their purpose,

even if it's sadder

to see them allowed it.

 

Seeking this perfectly fair allocation

of the grandkids’ Easter Eggs

I had one over I had to eat, then found

that I’d miscounted, and had to eat two more…

  

Autumn already!

How fast the Seasons pass

by which I mean to say of course

the Autumn of Petals.

(Petals under the same tree as 'The fortnight of glory' - opposite our house)

How long will he be waiting here

for the work to finish?

Long enough, I suspect,

to be pleased to be bronze.

 

(Woking: that is ‘Standing Man’, 2010, by Sean Henry)

 

Here’s the perfect marriage

of bollard and wall:

close enough to constitute a match,

yet different enough for independence.

(Taunton) 

        

Newport spiders

are considerate knitters:

out to trap and eat flies, yes,

but generously keen to keep them warm.

(Newport)

 

There's only one question

to usk

about Newport:

what is the name of its river?

(River Usk, Newport)

 

Where is this transporter bridge?

Newport, of course.

And it crosses the biggest tidal range

of any city in the world.

(Evidently more questions are, in fact, possible about Newport. It has one of just seven transporter bridges still extant. Moreover, the River Usk, which gives Newport the biggest tidal range of any city in the world, is crossed by five bridges in two miles as it runs through the city)

            

Is a triple teasel

known as a treasel,

or am I just

teasling?

(Newport Wetlands Nature reserve)

 

It’s hard to believe

that this picture is so valuable

it needs security

as intrusive as the Mona Lisa’s.

 

(Horton’s Lounge, Newport)

 

It’s bad enough

that seagulls sit down

when they should be flying around

without them soiling their seat.

 

(Portishead)

 

If each bulb lights the other bulb

and all of them light the wall

where does that leave

the purpose of illumination?

 

(Costa, Taunton)

 

 

Two ducks in a row

hardly seems a worthwhile score.

You might as well make

a duck in cricket.

(Portishead)

 

I can read the avian thoughts

What’s the big problem with soft mud

you can just fly up from,

soon as you land?

('Danger - Soft Mud' sign, Portishead)

I remember the bubble car

But I don’t remember

it being quite like this.

Wasn’t the car the bubble?

 

(Hatch Beauchamp, Somerset: a Range Rover chassis under preservation awaiting a matching top)

The fortnight of glory

is here again,

the fortnight of asking:

is that long enough?

 

I have discovered

how to take screenshots on my phone.

All I need to work out now

is why I’m taking them…

 

Don’t be deceived

by the presence of pots:

these flowers aren’t actually  growing from them,

but out of the wall, as they should.

 

(Wallflowers thrive in cracks on cliffs and against old stone walls - hence the name, which is nothing do to - as is popularly assumed - with their being left at the edge of bouquets while other flowers garner all the attention)

 

Feeling boxed in

by human concerns,

he tried out tiger life.

It didn't really help.

(Milan)

What if the windowscape

were to be a genre?

I reckon it’s well worth

looking into.

 

(Milan)

 I’ve started the breeding program

It’s a shame

I won’t be here long enough  

to bring it to fruition.

 

(Milan – I was there 2-5 April 2025. I manually combined two flowers to make the third)

If I find a space 

all well and good. And if I don't 

I'm not about to lose my cool:

all well and good the same

(Milan)

 

Here I am, urinating

but keeping so still

the lights have gone off.

I guess that's some relief...

 

(Toilet cubicle with movement-triggered lighting, Milan)

  

Some repairs

are simpler than others.

This one arrives at maximum simplicity,

leaving just the matter of effectiveness.

 

(Milan)

 

Irma's texts

are blank of meaning

unless you say that every meaning

lies encoded there.

 

(Irma Blank: Eigenschriften (Writing for the Self, 1969. In her pastel-coloured drawings on paper, the appropriately-named German-Italian artist (Celle, Lower Saxony 1955 - Milan 2023) repeated signs to make a meaningless written language)

 

I take it that women don’t jerk

so much as stroke,

and that is Yuskavage’s point:

it is the men who are the jerks.

 

(Lisa Yuskavage: ‘Big Blonde Jerking Off’, 1995 – as shown at the Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2025)

 

The net result

of Milan by night

is only the slightest

curtaining off.

 

(View from hotel room with black net curtains - NH Collection Milano CityLife)

 

These trees have been

so brutally cut back

they only let them out at night,

once the children are tucked in bed.

 

(Prada Foundation, Milan)

 

Everything in Italy

tends to run late.

So is it only two o’clock

when the clock says three?

 

(Milan – while waiting for my late-running pick-up)

 

It isn't so often

that buildings have faces,

raising the question: what’s it looking out for?

Surely not me?

(Milan Central Station - the face is part of the monumental architectural scheme from 1931, and is actually meant to operate as a fountain from the mouth, though it was not operational when I was there)

 

Here is the aesthetic rule

for tourists in Milan:

cases may be any colour,

so long as they are red.

(Milan)

 

I have nothing to say

about John Cage’s visit to Milan

which is why

I’m saying it.

 

(Milan: if I were to say something, it might be that in 1959, Cage was a guest of Luciano Berio here. The image shows him at the piano on that trip. His most famous statement is ‘I have nothing to say, and I am saying it’, which draws attention the impossibility of saying nothing, for once a frame of communication has been set up, the emptiness in it will speak. As it does in 4’ 33”, his most famous musical statement.)

 

Here’s the red van

ascending what I take to be

the red hill of  Redhill.

I’m not sure that they call it that, but still…

 

(Redhill, Surrey: the road seems to be called Redstone Hill and Ladbroke Road at different points)

 

 

I thought I was in complete control

but my grasp of the matter was incomplete

as I suppose was the word ‘complete’,

the first two letters having gone missing.

 

(That is the cover of The Clash’s 7” single ‘Complete Control’, 1977. The first two letters of 'incomplete' are 'in', so 'complete' is not complete....) 

 

Exactly when

are you allowed to park here?

Perhaps a red and yellow line

means any time you wish…

 

(Southampton)

That's enough pineapples

I get it

that they’re gold

but that's enough.

 

(outside the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)

          

It was hard enough

to find a place to charge the car

even before

the colour-matching regs came in.

 

(Fitzrovia, London)

 

What the forests

of London

lack in scale

they make up for in drama.

 

(St Pancras, London)

 

Temptations

have come a long way.

These days an apple

Is hardly worth the finishing.

 

(Basel)

 

Symbiosis is a wonderful thing

Were I a roof I’d want some moss

to keep me warm. Were I some moss

I’d want a roof to grow on.

 

(Southampton)

 

What colour is safety?

It’s hard to say,

but apparently not

the traditional yellow.

 

(Holborn, London)

            

I hope this cormorant

doesn’t plan to nest here:

I suspect that might be

classified as mooring.

(Regents Canal, Kings Cross, London. It seems unlikely: cormorants usually nest in colonies on low cliffs)

Just look at the beauty

of that modulation!

And set aside the matter  

of location.

 

(Urinal, Holborn, London)

 

 

'That’s not an option’

she explained, ‘it’s a noption’.

And I realised why the word

had not caught on.

       

Is that an abbreviated breakfast

served with abbreviated tea?

Or breakfast with no ‘s’,

implying that there’s coffef but not tea?

(Marylebone, London)

 

The key to life

is a sense of purpose.

Plenty of people struggle,

yet these pigeons have it cracked.

(Southwark, London)

File this barber

with Fatboy’s Gym, Tortoise Taxis

and the Lose-It-All Casino 

as names you might choose not to give a business.

 

(Chichester)

After the carnival

a confetti of colourful memories

lives on

in every detail of the city.

(Basel:  I arrived just after the 2025 Carnival – a three day binge of drink and masked parades running 4 a.m. on 10 March on to 4 a.m. on 13 March – but despite a speedy clean-up of the major messes, confetti was still visible everywhere)

 

I estimate this croissant

at 150,000 calories.

She looks pretty skinny, though -

maybe she can cope.

(Lucerne: a typical croissant has 300 calories. I reckon this one is x 500)

It may be a trick question

but can you tell the difference between

the modernist coot Fulica atra moderna

and the more traditional Fulica atra classicus?

(Lucerne: the trick being to decide whether the coots on the inlet of Lake Lucerne are more interested in the buildings closest to them, or the more distant ones  we can see in the pictures)

Who could fail to be impressed

that the mannequins of Switzerland

go to the trouble

of sourcing the clothes that have been photographed?

 

(Lucerne: I've never seen this done in Britain)

Sweetzerland

is useless:

lots of chocolate, lots of watches,

but I can’t find a chocolate watch.

(That said, though I didn’t see one, the choco-watch is a known item - for example, as sold by Beyer Watches & Jewellery, Zurich. I did see adverts for chocolate placing me in 'Sweetzerland')

 

Life is good

as an Easter Rabbit.

Our only concerns are being eaten

and the shadow of the  Big Rabbit, looming above.

 

(Läderach Chocolatier Swiss, Lucerne)

Here’s when it occurs to me

that I am gazing down

on Picasso gazing down

on Fernande gazing down.

(‘Head of a Woman’, 1909, thought to be Fernande Olivier, 1909, in the Rosengart Collection, Lucerne)  

            

I guess they’re wondering

why they bothered to swap umbrellas

given that it’s pretty much

stopped raining.

 (Lucerne)

 

An octet with one member cut off at the legs

may sound problematic,

but – as they all play guitar –

the impact may be hard to hear.

 

(Nicholas Micros: ‘Strummer’, 2009-12, Zurich. According to the artist 'eight identical cement mortar figures play a string less Picasso-esque guitar and make a circular procession on a heavy wheel. It’s the same injection cement used to support tunnels and mines during construction. The circular parade has no beginning or end. The eight-sided wheel is cast in the prized material of high modernist architecture, industrial concrete, and is imprinted with a radiating geometric depiction of infinity')

 

To get frontally pregnant

is understandable -

but to get posteriorly pregnant as well

does seem a little bit careless.

 

(Niki de Saint Phalle: ‘Gwendolyn’ 1966 at the Tinguely Museum, Basel)

 

I see the logic

Smoke is curly,

chimneys ought

to be curly, too.

 

(Basel)  

I'm not one

to gamble

but it looks fairly safe

to cross the railway here.

(Basel)   

 

Here is my self-portrait

as a finger

covering the camera lens

even as I’m caught by it.

This is no good

I want to see

the painting that she couldn’t paint,

not the one she could.

 

(Tracey Emin: ‘I Wanted You To Fuck Me So Much I Couldn't Paint Anymore’, 2020 – as shown at Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, 2025)

          
 

 

This disposal makes a lot of sense

You don't need hands -

let alone gloves -

to climb up steps.

 

(Blackfriars, London)

 

Here's how to count

at least in part.

I wonder how high

the lesson will go.

 

(St James’s, London)

 

To name an establishment

after one chocolate biscuit

could be coincidence –

but to name it after two…

 

(The Playhouse Theatre, near Trafalgar Square, London, has – since 2021 – been advertised as the Kit Kat Club while it is hosting a revival of the musical Cabaret, which features a nightclub of that name. The original Kit Kat Club was a political and literary club for Whigs in 18th century London. That name came from them meeting in on the premises of a pastry chef named Christopher (Kitt) Catling, who supplied meat pies called ‘Kit-Cats’. Rowntree's, of York, originally created the Kit Kat bar in 1935 (Nestlé acquired Rowntree's in 1988). Club was first made in Ireland by Jacob’s – now owned by British firm McVitie's.)

 

 Who’d throw Venus

onto the street –

that now takes on

her fleshy aura?

 

('Venus' mattress, Covent Garden, London)

 

Just how soft

can an execution get?

I can't think too much further

than a hood.

 

(Southwark, London)

 

Probably too obvious

to enter into

any contest for the

best t-shirts slogans. 

 

(Hampstead: I saw the shirt in 'action', but I didn't get a photo)

 

It hardly looks

a big enough road

to cover the 91 miles to Lymington.

Hampstead would be pretty good going.

 

(Camden, London)

 

‘I'm quite a bit bigger than you’

‘Yes, but your nipple is rusty -

and anyway, shouldn’t we aim

to be the same size?

 

(Marble Arch, London)

 

Economics trumps the future

madmen rule what they haven’t turned to rubble,

the moon rises indoors…

All is not well.

 

(Mayfair, London)

 

When the Blue and Red Gap Snake

flips its white tail 

you know it is about to strike.

Yet I am brave!

(Connaught Village, London)

 

I know what I’m meant to think

‘I must get to Brighton’.

I know what I do think:

who is Joe Bonamassa?  

 

(St Pancras Station, London - it turns out he’s an American blues rock guitarist, singer and songwriter. For all I know he isn't that obscure, but stands in for the fact that almost everyone is obscure to most people)

 

It's as if

the full extent of my training

as an electrician

has been laid bare for all to see…

 

(St John’s Wood, London)

 

I'm surprised they keep going 

So little happens at this station,

you'd think they might be tempted

to sell some news from further afield. 

 

(Stockwell Underground Station, London)

 

If that’s all

that’s left of the car

I think I’ll take a scooter

or the bike.

 

(Swiss Cottage, London)

What is the word

for a gap in the crack?

and is there

an appropriate sealant?

(Marble Arch, London) 

 

I was hoping 

the sign would say

STRICTLY NO RUNNING

as I scooted by…

(Barbican, London)

 

I used to live here 

but I couldn't sleep.

I always said it was time for the world

to slow time down.

(Barbican, London)

 

 

I do not look down on Boots

A perfectly respectable store, I’d say –

and yet I do

look down on Boots.

(City of London – store in basement, visible from street)

 

If the answer

is Saint Gobbaine,

then what was the question

and why was it asked?

 

(Fitzrovia, London)

 

Surely air feels more like nothing

I’ve been to Cheltenham,

and it didn’t feel radically

different from Gloucester.

 

If that is a heron

it has quite a wingspan:

I'm not surprised

the dog doesn’t chase it.

 

(Barbican, London)

The phallus

of the Duke of York

is big enough for bragging rights

but I can't see it getting any action.

 

(St James’s, London: The Duke of York Column is a monument  to Prince Frederick, Duke of York (1763-1827), the second son of King George III, designed by  Benjamin Dean Wyatt, with the statue atop it by Sir Richard Westmacott raised in 1834)

 

How far from Windsor to London?

The original twenty-odd miles

takes on another hundred

by the time you get to Canada.

Fairport Convention

were at their peak in the seventies.

Now it’s just them

in the seventies.

(I saw Fairport Convention at the Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton in February 2025. To be fair, the problem isn’t so much fading powers as the lack of any replacement for Sandy Denny, who for example wrote and sang their best-known track – ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes?’ in 1969 and sang with them only 1968-70 and 1974-75 - not to mention Richard Thompson, their other top songwriter, who left in 1971)

 

Who is this as gold as brass?

And did they bother to paint the rear

of what we must assume should be

a very golden marble arse?

(St James’s, London – this is the Athenaeum , built in 1827-30 by Decimus Burton, home of the Athenæum Club and of the golden marble statue of Pallas Athenae by Edward Hodges Baily (1788-1867), who also put Nelson on his column)

 

Here are the moments

before the lifts

when I wonder:

will I find a severed head?

 

I would not go quite so far

as the titular echo of ‘tiresome’,

but it's true

that I've seen such things before.

 

(‘Trisome‘, 2000 by Anthony Cragg at the Arts University Bournemouth. A trisome is a chromosome occurring three times - rather the usual twice - in a cell. That aside, it’s a pretty typical Cragg.)

 

If we look like indecisive bricks

consider this: we sorted the order

to build ourselves -

the brief did not incorporate chromatics.

 

(Bournemouth)

              

Is discontinuity

the curse of life,

 or just what keeps it

interesting?

(London Underground)

 

Why are these tulips so sad?

Is it because they are wilting?

Or are they only wilting

because they were discarded?

 

(Connaught Village, London)

 

Notice how

this ‘no dumping’ sign

demonstrates by way of warning

the very behaviour it seeks to prevent.

 

(Paddington, London)

                       

How should I take this?

That all will be restful under the sky

or that I won’t have a roof

while the celestials do their thing?

 

(Premier Inn, Edgware Road, London)

 

Vertical trees

have had their time,

and they’ve been good

but this is the horizontal wood.

(Cambridge Heath, London)

 

These are the night railings

keeping by force

to their rainy day order,

but doubling up with shadow.

 

(Islington, London) 

 

These are blank times

by day and by night.

No wonder the faceless

are modelled in the shops.

(Mayfair, London: as of 2025, the faceless mannequin is very much in fashion) 

What sort of driver do they want?

dodgy parking dawdler,

demon paced dasher

or a dream parcel deliverer?

(Holborne, London)

                  

To steer himself clear

he makes up a rule:

the blacker the blonde,

the smaller the ratio of ‘Hi!’ to ‘Fuck off!’.

 

                    

 

Whoever thought that Valentines

was such a serious matter?

Is he pondering whether the message is right,

or wondering who it would suit?

(Train from London to Winchester, 13 Feb 2025) 

What kind of reception

is all that graffiti?

Yet it could be worse:

nothing here is legibly offensive.

 

(Millbrook, Southampton)

 

Not just any pothole

but our pothole, outside our house.

The affection that generates

is, however, limited.

 

If paving slabs are kept in place

by treasury tags

then the budget for street repairs

Is even more stretched than I’d thought.

 

If catkins

are the best that’s available

it might be best

not to walk home.

 

Some slippage

is inevitable 

when comparing the ideal

to the reality.

 

If I worked here

I'd be tempted to make an ill-tempered resignation

simply to be able to shout:

‘Fuck ING!’ 

(ING Bank, City of London)

If they’re going to be invisible

you’ll need your clothes as permanent

as the skin you'll see through them -

for how would you know when to throw them away?

 

(Fitzrovia, London)

 

The view through ‘View’

is rarely worth the framing:

I had to wait five minutes

just for a walker and dog.  

 

(Naomi Blake: ‘View’, 1977, in the gardens of Fitzroy Square, Fitzrovia, London)

Is whatever’s not allowed and when

under water far enough

to claim you were floating

clear of the rules? 

(Kings Cross, London)

This is an important cone 

crowned and cloaked

with its own praetorian guard,

and also an assistant. 

(Fitzrovia, London)

 

 

Grass: green

Tub: greener.

Water: greenest

of them all?

 

Execution would be too harsh

as a punishment for fly posting -

yet, were that applied for this offence,

I could at least appreciate the irony.

 

(Brussels)

Could all of this burst

like a bubble,

not just the fleeting excitement,

but the longest-standing stone?

 

(Cathedral square, Ghent)

 

The city of Ghent

seems very relaxed:

even the plants

get a chance to sit down.

 

(Ghent)

 

The tricky question

of whether to take the plunge.

‘Is the water too cold? Am I sure I can swim?’

before you realise, ‘Fuck it, I’m a duck!’

 

(Ghent)

 

If I were a tree

I wouldn't choose to be Belgian:

and, if I were Belgian,

I wouldn’t choose to be a tree.

 

(Brussels)

 

Late January

and it’s still Christmas in Brussels -

on account, I assume,

of the seasonal role of its sprouts.

 

(Brussels, 26 Jan 2025)

 

 

Do pigeons normally

hunt in threes?

Only if they come across

an exceptionally elusive chunk of bread.

 

(Bethnal Green, London)

 

Given that they can’t quite claim

to be parked between them,

what’s the punishment for these tins

violating double yellow lines?

 

(Bethnal Green, London)

 

 

These branches seem

to have kept themselves together OK,

but how far can the deconstruction go

before they stop being a tree?

 

(Cambridge Heath, London)

 

 

What is all this

pseudo-comic crap?

Wouldn’t it be quicker

to set out what you can flush down the loo?

 

(South Western Trains, Weymouth to Waterloo)

 

Is this an abstraction?

Not if you’re engaged

in the decidedly figurative matter

of trying to climb it.

 

(Parthian rock climbing gym, Southampton – my grandchildren are regulars)

 

Is this a campaign

for alcohol-free communions

or just a chance for an actress / model

to show some playful spirit?

(London underground  stations. Lucky Saint is a beer with just 0.5% alcohol. The adverts, timed to coincide with ‘dry January' 2025. feature photographs by Rankin. The agency involved explains that ‘the Lucky Saint name and brand world leans in to beer's brewing history that began in monasteries with monks hundreds of years ago, and this is where we’ve taken our tone of voice from as well.’) 

I'm not one 

for speciesist assumptions: 

here's a pigeon headed for 

the reader registration desk.

(British Library, London)

This looks useful

in being for more than the usual bikes:

seems any old thing

can be attached here for disposal.

 

(Clerkenwell)

 

3 a.m. …

Probably the optimum time

to suffer an emergency,

given the absence of traffic.

 

(Police car, Kings Cross, London)

What happens in Dulwich

stays in Dulwich, as the saying goes…

So I threw this twist of green into the station bin

after it had seen me round the village.

 

(Dulwich, London)

 

One of these flowers

makes extra sense:

could any bee resist

the lure of a backlit bloom?

 

(St James's, London)

 

He knew he had to mind the gap –

who hasn't heard that?

Some gap in the mind

must be what he fell down.

 

(Waterloo Station, London)

 

 

This is a reasonably popular model

among those who feel

that you don’t want a fence

to cut off the view.

You might not expect much heat

to be radiated

from a homeless unit on the street,

but at least this has a pipe.

 

(Somers Town, London)

 

‘Water meets beer’?

In fact, it’s all in the natural family:

water meets the ‘citrus blast’

of ‘Mountain Dew’.

 

(Fitzrovia, London)

Buildings made of stone? 

I guess it's an option

if you run out of bricks

or mud or straw.

 

(Holborn, London: Stone Buildings were constructed from 1774-80 as the first step in an ultimately unrealised plan to rebuild Lincoln's Inn entirely in stone)