A Single Sparkler & A Late Bonfire by Owen Townend

A Single Sparkler

Expecting fireworks?

They're stuck in a bucket.

 

Awaiting sunshine?

There's drizzle expected.

 

Hoping for magic?

Then don't look too closely.

 

The light show of my love

is a single sparkler

but watch it's trails

as it's getting darker.

It's worth the wait.

A Late Bonfire

He starts his bonfire after the night

in the confines of his empty drive.

He lays out logs and sets them alight

and dark smoke climbs well before five.

 

He throws broken bricks onto this pyre,

then twisted scrap metal and acrid acrylic.

Old building material burns in his fire

and chokes out the neighbours soon after six.

 

The last thing he chucks onto this blaze

is a letter marked ‘official – cease and desist’.

It flickers and blackens in illicit malaise

but soon becomes ash and easily dismissed.