Roger Hare

@hareontherun.bsky.social

714 Followers 473 Following

Poetry scribbler, cricket lover, art appreciator living in the Midlands. (Not doing the Bluesky age verification protocols so please initiate any desired direct contact via open posting/tagging ( or by insta messaging) not via chat, thanks 😊)

Each Morning Five bright lines grouped in fives: a tally on my 'lids closed inside - who's keeping score?
Blossom petals litter the lawn like the fallen of some conflict -- slain infantry of a battle for us to fain the fruit of labour not our own. I take a moment of remembrance, salute the colours under which they went to war.
The metallurgy of sun- set's forge -- sky beaten colder, cold, till we can't tell if it's open or closed
Photo of clematis flower buds
Surely you've felt more than just paperclips between us, more than just occasional sharing of Blu Tac? Us, us meeting with such propriety at the photocopier, maintaining such decorum waiting patiently for the kettle to boil in the office kitchen - it's blowing off of steam surely hinting at more than the filling of a stained cup.
All it took was a broken toilet pedestal to take us back to the wild, to the art of finding a place to leave our spoor where we hope it doesnt give us away - the joy of a supermarket toilet, a pub with facilities open to non-patrons, an overnight hotel equipped with nothing but the clothes we stand up in.
To get me there you'll have to lay-on decent enticement. Something large and round turning in the sky, an amusement that sings, dings, rings, plays a tune. A bagatelle that accelerates ball bearings beyond the speed of light to nestle in nests of numbered pins. How about a bowling alley, complete with flashing scoreboard? somewhere I can hurl a coconut? teacups made for other than sipping, snd straw on the floor yo keep feet off muddied grass, to soak up children's tears? A quieter area, perhaps, where we could linger, all the ghosts haunting someone else's train. At the end I need to walk home with a soft toy and a sugar rush. To get me to be anything other than visitor will take more, so much more, than this.
Defeat of Decency? after Mariano Fortuny's 'Nude Old Man in the Sun,' (c1871) Look on me as beauty, as denial of the iconography of youth, as prophet of the tried- &-tested, upholder of the truth.
Flipside Is it possible that our under- belly, our under-side, the part we hide for conformity's sake, is the very thing that needs to be on show? Should we forego the effort to keep it under our soles, turn it to the light instead, honour the colours normally confined to shade? Let you and I de- clare an amnesty with our every callus, ridge & valley - press them to the inkpad of the world, say, look! this my fingerprint, my wound, my badge of glory.
The Promise Young trees staked and sheathed: each future equinox defined by their chemistry of leaves.
The wolf at the door has brought their friends (near and far), siblings, parents, children, cousins, aunts and uncles, acquaintances and some invited more in hope than expectation. When you're on your uppers word gets out - your howls picked up and amplified to draw an expectant crowd, some of whom turn out angels in disguise to keep their buddies at bay by the use of subtle suggestion, while some may be sheep, with fur heaped on their lanolined hides, come to smuggle you among their flock for a single- file march to safety -- fields far from the slathering eyes of those who will sing about how close they came.
Denial When dawn and dusk disobey the rules but I haven't wisdom enough to keep my blood turned from the sky, I sew my stripped, cured flesh into a purse of prayer, in hope of a gift of coins to grant me some purchase against the storm.
On the Beach the crossed bare feet of resting swimmers on the sand are, to me, as wings of fleshy cherubs that butterfly the sea and wave back at us, left stranded, as needs must, to guard valuables and read.
Threshold I so rarely stand, just stand on my doorstep to watch former things fritter away, neighbours come and go, the weight of brick and slate, the moving sight of the widow open her curtains again. To hear wheels of commerce rubber the road, the schoolchildren's tide - high and low - to see the gentle to-and-fro of shirts on a line, and day leak it's light, fold down it's air, for me, for me to turn, to step, to go back inside.
Awakening Felt as a finger sliding along a nerve, as light miraged by air - a defining bow wave, an essential breath.
Softlight Softness is to be found on a roadside, scattered, picked apart - no longer the bird it was, just a thinning pile of down and vain feathers: at once a real thing torn apart, and at the same time a new beginning. Later, you will wonder where you were when wind dispersed it, will chastise yourself for not holding it closer to your chest, will lament the passing of its light touch.
Daffodils growing in a wood
8.30pm Dawn is fine, don't get me wrong - it's just that now, so far out from it, it seems a little passe, a fashion that has had its day. At the time I was honoured to see its rising glow inflate the clouds, a blackbird provide a fitting soundtrack. But, at this remove, I consider it just something else to wait for.
A Place That Mattered If I could be smart in the use of a measuring jug and calculator I could work out how much water has passed under that bridge since then. It's tarmac led, as it still leads, up to a carillon that is a neighbourhood's pride: I heard it ring out at least once, I seem to recall. The brook brashing itself out from under the road had cut a deep rift into the park, guarded itself with brambles and shadow: at places only sound gave it away. Years later, this water and rust brought me to tears - enthusiastic stripping had robbed a cadre of voles of any place to bank their whiskered heads.
Photo of a Fiat 500 on a porch over a pizza restaurant- the car has eyes on its windscreen a la the movie 'Cars'
Who Told You About Silence? You’ve been led to believe that all our skies feel this way, that there are no colours other than grey, that air is meant as a threat. None of this is true; you’ve been constrained into a frame to suit the lens of the one who charmed you. Let them see how unmerited is their mockery of your breath – give them your story of how joy should be counted. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll know your heart is already in your mouth: pick the lock imposed on it, sound its voice, take pleasure in discovering it’s not an indulgence.
Love of Your Life If you should ever discover their smile to be a puppetry of ropes, the generosity of their body a matter of levers - each correctly pivoted - their guileless gaze maintained by pulleys, then remember this is no cold machine aimed at mining your affection, but engineering whose blueprints are kept, incorruptable, in a casket fashioned on the day your eyes and theirs first met.
A Composer's Joy lies between the sheets of a musical score - in the rise of a fresh idea, the entrance of a theme. Then comes the effort to sustain the tune, develop chord progression - look, see the stains between the staves.
Old Skin For old skin say skin suit, say skin tight, say oil skin, skinny dip. Say peeled skin, thin-skinned. Say skin flint, skin that can't be turned to show a better side. Say folds that never return to home, say backs-of-your-hands like exposed sandstone. Say skin deep, say skin of your teeth. Say scared, say scared right out of your skin.
Lift to the Sky banner photo
Ice pattern on a car screen
The pages were written with blue lines ruled in parallel - a consonant's loop apart. I held the biro still with its cap clicked on, and pressed my words into the what-might-have-been.