Regardless

By Barbara Hickson

Regardless

of the grey faced houses

staring at each other

across a narrow street

with its organised congestion

of badly parked cars

and clutter of wheelie bins;

the stacked up junk in back yards

and sagging washing lines

that remind me of pictures of Italy;

almost like the chaos wreaked

in the streets of Valencia —

rain storming the city,

traffic piled up in a jumble

like an impromptu scrap yard;

albeit that we’re passers by

with no reason to loiter

we could, if we wished, pause

by the patchwork of evening allotments

three roads down,

with their ramshackle sheds

and rows of crinkly kale

to take in the ripeness of a sinking sun

that floods the sky and sets

each pane of greenhouse glass on fire.

Barbara Hickson’s poems have appeared in anthologies and journals including Poetry Salzburg Review, London Grip, Channel, Echtrai and Finished Creatures amongst many others.  They have also been successful in competitions including Magma Editors’ Choice and The Plough Prize. Her poetry pamphlets are A Kind of Silence (Maytree Press, 2021) and Only the Shining Hours (Maytree Press, 2024). www.poetrypf.co.uk/barbarahicksonpage.shtml