I saw a bride splendid in white garments
I saw a woman with one hundred children 
The children plump and firm within her arms,
But some fell down or strangers took and ate them

That fire, they said, was red as red as red
as red as a fox, your lips, a cherry;
that fire, they said spread and spread and spread,
faster than a cheetah or a nasty rumour;

Now we're up on the edge

and over, on the mountain

with mountains beyond. Behind us,

            in the dark

of the valley, villages are embers

I am the word juggler.
I juggle the words
like swords.
I slice sense
with poetic license.

Miss Flotsam was my reception teacher.
She had travelled the world.
Brown hair turned golden
under distant suns,
clothes carrying colours

Newly baked and fresh today
Eat while hot or take away.

Spring is baby,
bright, fresh and new,
gurgling with the melting snow,
singing with the first cuckoo.

This is the kingdom of the Water Bear.

To enter here, you have to shrink

and slow down, down. A day

is one tick of the clock, one blink

Thomas Farynor, Baker to the King,
Left his oven burning with the firewood nearby.
The embers muttered, the little flames took wing

The light through the blind is a poem,

the way it illuminates air.

And the shadows that fall

on the floor and the wall

are signs that a poem is there.