January 15th
Tucked away under
the scaffolding
lies an old, tattered
sleeping bag.
Unwanted.
Unloved.
Cast out on the streets.
One hopes its owner met a better fate.
January 16th
Delicate. Carefully formed.
Bubbles of roasted bitterness
float through the chatter.
Ebner’s glands begin to water
in anticipation.
With the smallest swirl of a spoon?
Destruction.
January 17th
“There’s an art to life’s distractions,
To somehow escape the burning weight, the art of scraping through…” – Hozier
Supplements littered with ‘how tos’;
Magazines punctured by ‘must dos’.
On all the billboards, on all the signs
“Give up the carbs and stay off the wines,
monitor your heartrate, keep count of your steps,
analyse your sleeping and increase your reps.
Be mindful of calories, empty your inbox,
clear out the wardrobe and pair up your socks.”
Relentless.
What ever happened to a purposeless, ponderous
meander
through the
park?
Or
a lazy afternoon whiled away curled up with a book?
Even
‘wasting’ an evening dancing to music
like nobody’s watching? judging?
or counting the heartrate or
the calories burned…?
January 18th
Wisps of violet dance across the sky.
Skeins of spun sugar
pirouette in the half-light.
Streetlights cast a harsher glare,
flinging shadows into every crevice.
Doorways populated by murky fiends.
January 19th
Hidden amongst the modern behemoths
which stretch and scrape against the sky,
Colossi built of metal and glass ripped untimely
from the earth and fashioned into cathedrals
of modernity,
Sits the modest herbolario.
Dwarfed and denied light.
A rare and delicate flower
in a concrete jungle
struggling to survive.
January 20th
Hazy. Out of focus.
A mysterious figure looms in the spotlight
towering over the city below.
Cars whizz past on the busy boulevard,
their inhabitants inured to the battle enacted above
At least Prometheus got to sleep.
This fight stretches into the dawn.
January 21st
A perfectly rectangular piece of stone
carefully measured, carefully cut, carefully placed.
We tread on them every day,
trusting in their durability
without thinking of their fragility.
The support they offer is not so strong
to prevent the occasional body falling
into the abyss.
Nicola Heaney 