Upcycling by Andrew Howdle

 


 

Andrew Howdle is a retired teacher and educational consultant. He lives in Leeds, England. He studied literature at the Universities of Manchester and York. Poems have appeared in Ekphrastic ReviewImpossible ArchetypeSingapore UnboundNine Muses, and Lovejets (2019), an anthology of poems paying tribute to Walt Whitman. His poem, ‘A Letter from York’, which won the 2018 Singapore Unbound  poetry competition, was nominated for the Hawker Prize.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upcycling

 

RARE BIRD NESTS IN LEEDS THRUSH HOUR.

                                                  RSPB News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Undeterred by crowds,

A Mistle Thrush squats in her

Traffic-light-nest-box.

A systematic sun glows

Behind nonconformity.

 

Now and then, a beak

Rises, a feathered skull shifts,

And a dot outstares

The upwardly mobile eyes

Of students and their smart phones.

 

A sudden flapping

Of her left wing leaves a throng

Lost for words – even

Sellers of the Socialist

Worker eye her subversion.

 

Fiercely, she observes

From a pile of twigs and moss

With thermal heating –

Refraining from business rates –

Abstaining from council tax.

 

Andrew Howdle

 

Echoes by Andrew Howdle

New Build Stories and Poems