Today I made a decision. Not of great moment to anybody else, but important to me. I have decided that there are many important things in life, and pimping a hypothetical author platform isn’t one of them. I thought that as I watched a glorious Purple Emperor choosing a suitable flower on the promenade next to the river.

©Rosenzweig (talk)

Usually these are the moments when I find myself teasing out the words of a poem. Not this morning. My attention was drawn from the butterfly to a pirate emerging from the riverbank clutching a bouquet of buddleia spires. He collected his crutch from beneath the mulberry tree where he’d left it and came over to have a word. The flowers were for a lady friend who had been a musician until an accident left her right arm paralysed.
He’s a lively-eyed old gentleman pirate who can talk non-stop. We…