In Conversation With Birds

Bastardish Sun

Charlie Boy — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 17:10:40 GMT

Make no mistake, I have NOT made peace
with the sun,
despite the best of intentions.

But its grandest trick
is a good’un.

Toasted skin, tobacco;
cold glass putting up the good fight.
Almost,
at least,
at ease.

A brief moment,
I gaze under homogenous sky
with the last of the bastard sun
dripping away.
I see a bird fly
and I am not envious.
I simply am.

The moment fades a…

Sunset on Him.

Charlie Boy — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 12:43:16 GMT

Beer I.

Him sits atop a throne of cheap beer
and alternating nicotine sources.
Him is beaconed in sunlight.

Cat, nearby,
grateful, because Cat told Him so.
Grateful for allotted time.
Balcony time.

Make no mistake, lion;
four paws on the ground.
All times.

Cat does as Cat is told,
making Him think gentleness,
and talkin’.

Him hasn’t spoken all day
about much of anyt…

House Sparrow, Capitalised.

Charlie Boy — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 14:39:21 GMT

A god in my living room;
making a habit of slurping tea.
I don’t want to blaspheme in your presence, mate,
but Jesus Christ,
that’s fucking annoying.

He saunters, like a large Lebowski,
peeking out my blinds--
asking when the world got so loud.
The world ain’t slurping.

What’s with the house sparrow? he asks.
House Sparrow, capitalised. I say.
A god, apologisin…

An Affluent School of Higher Education

Charlie Boy — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 15:28:32 GMT

He sat upright and poured himself into his button-down shirt, unable to raise his back any higher. The fabric became skin. Nobody in this dream, he thought, had heard of air conditioning.

Like all the other dreams, he’s in school. No matter the genre, always and abruptly, there was the school. The night prior, he was being hunted by burly archetypes of m…

Silly In England

Charlie Boy — Mon, 11 May 2026 10:46:18 GMT

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Upon my wife's rescue 
of my sorry state of affairs, 
she stitches me back 
to skin on bone.

And I sit in those bones.
And I am afraid 
to move at all.

A child cries,
not me, but we look alike.
It is brave, in England, to be silly.

Turn off your flash,
I am trying to melt:
I used to love being silly on camera,
whatever happened to that?

I like my co…

Clown College

Charlie Boy — Wed, 06 May 2026 11:42:01 GMT

At just 10 years old,

Thomas Trilby was thrilled to see

the great Clown Valentina

at his cousin’s bris.

Her loud makeup and

out-of-tune dance laid a safe place

to set a smile.

Valentina loomed above him,

to gift the last red balloon.

A wave crashed inside his skull—

and stayed forever.

“What happens if I let it go?”

Young Thomas had asked,

with the skies in his eyes

BODIED STATISTIC

Charlie Boy — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:01:35 GMT

The Castle of the Pyrenees, René Magritte, 1959

Aphrodite's Sparrows

Charlie Boy — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:21:35 GMT

The Two-Headed Man despised Diet Cola, but only by half.

His parents, long dead, stood gaunt in the corner of his Zone 1 London flat.

“Don’t mind them”, the left head said to their guest.
“Why are they so skinny?” She said.
“There’s only so much food.”

She waved at their corner, happy to see a wave back.

”What was it you were struggling with?” The right hea…

Any Given Tuesday

Charlie Boy — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 10:55:39 GMT

Plastic hearts in her toybox—
rummaging little hands,
gigantically small hands,
shove the old away.

delicate bangs.
romping with haste.
she gets a speeding ticket
for her own two feet.

Shyness dries out in the tub.
Through toy,
she says all that she could not

in the gaze of anybody but us—

My creature from the black lagoon roars.

Throaty sniffles sing
as my finger f…

We Don’t Bemoan the Birds for Singing...

Charlie Boy — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:24:11 GMT

Every year, in our eyesore, second-floor flat, we host ‘The Olympics’.

The three children (Child #1, Child#2 and Toddler) play ten different games and try and win the trophy. The trophy holder didn’t have to clean their room for a month; that responsibility falls onto us, the parents, the insane people.

Games include, but are not limited to: Poetry, Act…

Inherited Weather

Charlie Boy — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 15:20:37 GMT

The child wore winter coats despite the summer’s heat; having been born to grieving parents, whose breath made rooms colder.

She bathed in a dressing gown and swam in a two-piece suit. The world had long healed and grown and didn’t have much to say about it. Her parents, however, were of a different time and took ample opportunity to gently remove the c…

Nature & Cure

Charlie Boy — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:50:58 GMT

Where my tower block once existed in brutalist simplicity, was now a milkshake conglomerate building—built in a night, it had seemed to me, the unobservant. The concrete walls oozed with stale milk, poured over the Betfred below. The birds fed on gummed flies and flew back with heavy bellies.

I sit on a tree stump; the Jogger had died. Opposite, The Brea…

Spring Equinox

Charlie Boy — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 12:05:30 GMT

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Emerged on the bank of the River Thames.
Said goodbye, to my
rat fellowship;
straddled my way home
under the Spring Equinox.

I have slept all Winter.
Not by choice.
Now I, like the ladybird,
wait at your window.

Let the air in.
Sink.

014. Bloodied Stubs & Cardiovascular Momentum

Charlie Boy — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 17:30:57 GMT

I saw a Witch on high, cackle her way into a jet engine— howling about what remained. A moment of silence for the many lives that day.

The rains twisted, red drops found my eye, stiff and sore. The sky was spinning, I’d never noticed before.

I lay flat on faux wood with plastic smell. The building was falling apart, I had hoped under its thatched and de…

Doctor Daisie

Charlie Boy — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 14:11:29 GMT

Lying on what wants to be a sofa,
but is instead a glorified chair—
My head rattles with failure,
as though it ought to mean something.

My hands hang limp.
My fingers jitter around the floor;
praying for a cat.
Or demon.

The TV continues its shite.
Blaring out noise
to conquer more noise.
Folding in on itself.

Nothing trying to make sense anymore.

Then the irony,
of…

013. Nakedness & Neighbourly Dispute

Charlie Boy — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 15:31:37 GMT

My body shrivelled in the grasp of cold water; my stomach afloat, a duck atop. The duck, not the same one as yesterday, but certainly his turn to ride the merry-go-prick—Things were peaceful, if not shrunken. Today, I shall float.

I could argue I was making peace with circumstance; that whatever limbo precedes me, at least I could swim, and avoid the EE …

Poem: Angel Arse

Charlie Boy — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 10:59:57 GMT

Angel Arse

You arrive home

and your underwear is

already in my mouth.

012. Autocannibalism & You

Charlie Boy — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 18:16:19 GMT

There was an unfamiliar laugh in the wind. Was it you?

I am flammable, like a bank or your landlord’s house. The composition of gathering stardust and violent 90s explosion, with ragdoll-mannequin. I wait for you in the trees. Don’t look for me in the trees. I’ve been throwing rocks at kids. I’m a menace, and deeply unpleasant. Your jean jacket looked wo…

Dr Sadly's Euphoria Emporium

Charlie Boy — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 14:29:08 GMT

What follows is the first transmission from Doctor Sadly’s Euphoria Emporium. We have catalogued all evidence related to his disappearance.

Please review carefully and keep your head.

///The signal will stabilise.

This is issue one.

Transmission Log 001

DOCTOR SADLY MISSING AS OF SEP. 1ST.

ALL EVIDENCE RECOVERED FROM EMPORIUM.

Case File: SADLY //// Status: MISSING

Poem: March of the Toy Soldiers

Colonel, we just received word—

They found a parasite inside Field Commander Charlie.

He reported to the staff Sergeant that his ankles tore like paper

and his lungs weighed like brick.

Doc attempted to smoke it out

with breathing exercises and daily affirmations.

No luck, sir.

The parasite remains.

Coroner says it grew like a tumour,

feeding off his morals

and what he called an “oblique” sense of humour.

They say it contorted his thoughts

into petty vengeances

salt-lake tears

and imagined grievances.

Karla reported that last night

he feigned sleep in a priority seat

to avoid the elderly.

This morning

his ribcage was found collapsing inward—

self-inflicted starvation.

Refused to dine anywhere she recommended.

As always,

the elderly get the last laugh, sir.

What are we to make of the journals?

We cannot let it be known

that morale collapsed under something so small.

Acute cowardice, sir.

Chronic self-regard.

You’re wondering how he dared

to write about the love we injected into him

while blaming desires

he never chose.

Why enlist at all?

Torn pages recovered.

Passages even Karla refused to read.

He wrote of trying

to be a good man for the world to see:

“All I ever wanted was for a door

to take me under its wing.

All I could muster

was to tear it from its hinge.”

Tried and failed, sir.

Send in the toy soldiers.

Bury the remains.

Question remains regarding Karla—

sole guiding light

to his spindled operation.

Does she require compensation?

Last journal entry references reinvention—

“an action man with a plan of action.”

Found on the first page as well.

And every page thereafter.

He wrote tender lines about her—

her soft voice,

dancing around lampposts in the rain,

imagining herself Gene Kelly.

Karla has testified on record

that none of it occurred.

It was merely his favourite film.

We’ve spoken with her.

No money required.

Journal to be buried with him—

All but the final page.

Different ink.

“I guess a day’s kindness depends

on the dreams of last night.”

She says he occasionally said something right.

Those words will wear his headstone.

011. Engines & Enginuity

Charlie Boy — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:01:11 GMT

What time is it? I asked, most minutes.
February went by.
No answer willing to sit still.

The week parcelled through me, left without touch or sunlight. Still, the engine turned, coughing a great lung. I parked under parachuting leaves, momentum fell toward my notebook—my least favourite notebook. Only important when the engine chokes. Perhaps I will wri…