A single kazoo sounds 
lonely 
and faintly absurd.
Imagine the sound of 
a hundred kazoos.
Now imagine ten thousand.

When I got back from the supermarket, 
quite soon after the unpacking
and the putting away,
they pinged me a survey.
They asked if anything ‘in branch’ had 
surprised or delighted me today.
I told them (in 35 words or less)


In branch today I was surprised, 
and delighted, by seven blue tits,
several lazy bees investigating 
closed apple blossom,
a spider eating flies, a shield bug 
wandering like a lost drunk,
and three flickering butterflies.

It is light earlier now,
after a long wet winter 
that may have killed the vine.


Skies bright for days,
the ground warms by degrees,
slowed by first frosts, Russian wind.


No matter, the world turns,
days lengthen, the sun’s arc rises.
The starlings in the roof tell me it is coming.

A detonation 
of Fieldfares bursts from the tree
surprising the sky.

Outside today,
brightest sunshine and an east wind,
perfect for repairing garden furniture.
Each spring I take great care,
take time, prepare by sanding, 
brush deep into the joints
with Danish Oil.
See how the rain always finds a way?
Electric green moulds have
found footholds in the splits.
Beautiful enough to make me 
hesitate.

One summer, in metalwork, we made
shurikens, Chinese Death Stars
we had seen in Bruce Lee films.
At home we made our own nunchucks,
from cut down broom handles and door chains,
practiced for hours, bruising elbows and heads,
getting nowhere, but trying hard.
How do you do the one-inch punch?
We bought Kung Fu Monthly, with fold out posters
of Bruce, his toned torso artfully slashed, 
and Chuck Norris, his side-burned disciple.
I found Bruce too showy, too loud, 
preferred David Carradine as Kwai Chang Cain,
Shaolin Priest, all inner peace and quiet strength,
and calm, where Bruce was not.
We threw our stars at trees, broke our nunchucks,
argued about style, signed up for lessons we never took.
By the end of the holidays, most of us had moved on.
I went back to birdwatching, discovered Camus
and Kerouac, punk rock and interesting girls,
contemplated killing my father,
then studied hard for my exams.

Pink gum slab, smelling of sugar
and something unreal, 


came in a cheap cartoon wrapper,
all the way from America! 

Sometimes the printing was so off
you couldn’t see the joke.


Maybe the printers were high that day,
on kaleidoscopic ink, or Warhol


had wandered in to the wrong factory.
And what’s with the eyepatch?


I sent 200 wrappers, but 
never received my Powerful Telescope.

Strange days indeed. The book is inevitably delayed, but we will get there. For now, my poetry compadres and I have decided to each write a poem, every day. This feels a little scary, but good-scary I think. Released from the pressure of only showing the best you can do, this instead is a sharing of ideas, which I am sure will occasionally produce ‘finished’ work to be proud of, the law of averages and all that, and talented folks of course. Those who have done this before found that they produced the seeds of future work, and that the exercise is liberating, making us more observant, more tuned in to the world around us. That has to be good.

Take care, Colin

Back in the colonial 30s, his mother 
called him Jew Boy, one of her jibes, 
careless and commonplace.


When he reached six she began his emptying, 
carefully replacing what she had taken. 
This was the way they made men.


A pound of dust packed tight 
where the heart had been, a set of bellows, 
a wristwatch, a fistful of nails,


a small bible, ram-rod, a hundred shillings, 
a sleeping adder, the word Empire, 
and several photographs of other children.


By sixteen she had almost finished him. 
He grew into sadness, had trouble with his smile. 
As a final touch, she painted one on.

When this was done, 
she made a space for her hand.

We lift cyclone fencing,
break in where we always do,
watching for White-Caps.
Each time it’s different, but
there is always treasure.
Today it’s helmets:
scuffed flashes, cracked visors,
nicknames, scorch marks.
We give them our stories, 
speculate, outbid each other 
with dogfights and ejections,
trade made-up hero uncles,
animate their exploits
with swooping hands until, at last, 
the guards appear with dogs
and we escape under the wire 
of Stalag-Luft III.