David Ralph Lewis

It's Easter and all the daffodils are screaming at the awakening ground- "Lazy arsehole!"

For the first couple of weeks in March I was recovering from gallbladder surgery, so had a lot of time to read and reflect and watch things as I let my body knit itself together.

I woke up in a thousand different realities simultaneously, head stuffed with cloves/ industrial by-products and waste/ a single sustained tinnitus buzz.

Erasure poem taken from Crack Magazine, February 2023.

and yes, I still gathered branches, and yes, I still wore my woollen coat, but it was unbuttoned, no scarf and yes, my skin still raised in surprise, and yes, the sky still heralded rain, but the sun was a paintbrush, not a scalpel and yes, many branches…

I've been meaning to do this for a couple of months, but during that time Christmas has come and gone, then I've packed to move house, moved to the countryside and prepped for minor surgery.

The sky and each moment expands as I observe it.

I am hauling all our rugs, books, house plants, our glasses wrapped in bubble wrap and old duvets , all our memories neatly boxed up, every object we own all jumbled, carrying from the borrowed van into our new home.

Return your charade of a citadel back to the abundant soil, the loan from loam now long overdue and incurring fines.

I maintained the gears of the moon as a university job.

Fresh frost has visited overnight, morning shudders, barely starts Our fallow fields now writhe with blight.

Blackbirds sing from the only tree left standing on land scrubbed clean.

Taken from Crack magazine.

Following on from last week's year in review post, which was more political in nature, I thought I would take some time to reflect on last year from a personal perspective.

Another year of political chaos, with three prime ministers, war in Ukraine and a cost of living crisis.

During the second spring, gorse opened exploratory canary buds, lending a perfume of coconut to apathetic winds.

November rattled by.

Her morning started with misty adolescent mooncore.

After I got married at the end of September, I went on honeymoon to Croatia.

Taken from Crack Magazine, August 2021.

I was on honeymoon in Croatia for the start of October, so I relaxed on a beach and read loads of books.

Drains are clogged with circuit boards again.

I came into office because in my possession was an ancient grimoire, at a time of great economic and international instability from which a few will profit, the system working as it should.

Taken from Crack Magazine, May 2022.

September was almost entirely dedicated to wedding planning and admin.

Taken from Crack Magazine, August 2021.

Taken from Crack Magazine, August 2022.

In July I caught covid again, possibly for the third time.

Taken from Crack Magazine, July 2022.

Summer is here and I am wilting.

Our days are longest now, we hold the light solid between our fingers, like putty, before twirling, once more unstoppable.

May went so fast.

I can't believe we are a third of the way through 2022.

Taken from Crack Magazine, April 2022.

March was another busy month as I adjusted to my new job and did lots of wedding admin.

Taken from Crack Magazine, April 2022.

Today I'm releasing an interactive poetry pamphlet called Reality Adjustments.

You imagined | a field transmuted | into endless red bricks.

February has flown by on gales and storms.

Taken from an old Mojo Magazine.

In the early days of this blog (5 years and almost 400 posts ago) I used to do monthly roundups.

Taken from Crack Magazine January 2022.

Last year I got through 65 books.

Yet again, I sit down to summarize the year gone by and yet again I find myself struggling for words.

Taken from Crack Magazine November 2021.

Taken from Crack Magazine November 2021.

I've been thinking about The Green Knight ever since I saw it a month ago.

Taken from Crack Magazine review page September 2021.

Taken from Crack Magazine review of Joy Orbison, September 2021.

I draw a square, to represent a former tobacco warehouse, converted by the council into offices, where I worked for a charity.