Bleasdale Sometimes I remember paragliders
pushing off from high up
on Parlick, into spluttering bluster
and walloping rain,
as my eyes sought Blackpool Tower
and the Isle and Calf of Man,
but found, instead, a modish display
of tumbling lapwing:
lissom, harmonised, suffragette sashes –
purple, white and green –
over ramsons, becks and sheep below.
And then I imagine
my friends, who'd stayed put for zazen
in the farmhouse annexe:
purification of fragile egos foiled by
one nostril whistling.
Matthew Paul works as an education officer for local authorities in south-west London. His first collection, The Evening Entertainment, was published by Eyewear Publishing in 2017, and he has recently had poems published in The North and Poetry Salzburg Review. He was twice selected to be a participant on the Poetry Business Writing School programme, and he is also the author of two collections of haiku, The Regulars (2006) and The Lammas Lands (2015), and co-writer/editor (with John Barlow) of Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku (2008), all published by Snapshot Press. He co-edited Presence haiku journal, has contributed to the Guardian’s Country Diary column, regularly reviews poetry books and pamphlets, and blogs about his writing and other things here.