Haikus on inadequate road resurfacing in Berkshire

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1. the cherry blossom 

    is teetering. Addington’s

    edges extending. 

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2. pavements: tentative,

    enduring. cautious trellis,

    molasses tarmac.

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3. arthritic layers 

    lamenting. gnarled and buried,

    putrid ambience.

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4. a mountainous crown,

    compressing. cloaks of divots

    rhythmically splinter.

 

 

Evensong

 

Feet stride andante among silk sparrows.
A meticulous lung narrates concrete
now striped in white and yellow death. 

Evacuating curlews swell,
double helixes of poisoned freckles against a broiling sun.
Marram and sandwort duet,
sewing the esplanade to its viridian sea. 

Above in sanctuary
the burr hoists a harnser’s wings.
Muted mercury ebbs and flows.

Dark wanderers are glimpsed through black poplars,
sketches of horizon, songs with unbroken refrain.

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Lone magpies

after ‘Untitled Song’; recorded by Arctic Monkeys at Electric Lady Studios, New York

 

We smear, watercolour on canvas, scoliosis recovering. Detached, a sugared cage of dull-laughter vibrating in afternoon downpours. Elvis & ecstasy is your comparison. Madonna on meth. 

 

The sun dollops honey into your hazel gaze. Khrushchev on ketamine. We don’t do this all day.

 

Behind viscous glass your fingers seize a half cadence; light falters bitterly in a sweet, sweet stutter. 

 

This is loneliness spread thin. Love in brine. Pressed flowers as faded paints. 

 

Two June bugs collide with dead daffodils in a midnight brawl.

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Kitty Hawkins grew up in Norfolk, England. She won the Magdalena Young Poets Prize 2022, and is currently studying for her Master’s in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.