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WELL IT WASN'T RAINING THEN, BUT IT IS RAINING NOW. And there is very little you can do about it. This picture suggests wit. Something short and cruel, there is not enough here to extend into feature film as that is humour. What there is is the stiletto knife of an idea that can pierce the side of intent.

There are those that say that in the near future, when 8 year olds are 18, interactive media will be so far advanced that our intent can be used to influence it. Never again will we be able to hide behind that lie.

But lying is good. Lying is merely another way of framing, of cropping out that which you do not want to be focused on and leaving the rest.

In the early days of television people thought that it would never work there was too much going on around the actual physical box itself. That little box, that screen could never hold the attention of anyone for more than a few minutes. That little box that has swallowed the world.

LIE MORE.

LOVE MORE.

LIVE MORE.

draft to see it in print in it see to draft

In the street light

an older man

eats a steak pie

from some paper.

His hair is combed back

carefully and his eyes

suggest another time.

Above him the light

shines through

a domestic tree

whose branches spiral

through the beaming.

Gleaming water drops

caught in this matrix

complete the picture.

The man’s foot taps

out a rhythm to a

now forgotten song.

A song that demands I

never waste a morning.

Missed

There is snow

on the driveway

and the headache

that you

have had for days

has finally lifted.

Shout up the stairs

past where the keys

are kept

to where the children

slept and they

still are there.

The leaves

had left the trees

and in scarves and coats

the children

scamper around their

green trunks

and kick at the litter

beneath them.

Have no doubt

in the idea

that the birds’ song

can conquer the gloom

of shorter days

that even in the warmth

of Summer

can be seen

approaching over the

still horizon,

from where the children

sleep and are there.

surely, shirley

The Sky is Alight

The sky is alight

and now is the time

to move to the town

to move down to the night.

This is the scene:

the pubs will be filled

with the drinkers and dregs

of the words that they mean.

The girl mops up spills

and collect empty whispers

and stack up the glasses

of those who would miss her.

Smokes spools from the thrill

that the night may yet hold,

and the safety of memory

is too cheaply sold.

And if all is then killed

by the hungry brigade

of those who have love; their

military will,

then weeping and shamed

we will crawl back into

the day’s homely shade

the home’s curtained view.