You don’t need to make big gestures,spend all your money, hand me the moon,photograph or paint me in vivid pictures,or feed me exotic food on a silver spoon. As the Beatles sang in our distant youth,I want to hold your hand. You don’t have to pretend to understandevery single poem I’ve ever composed,take me on […]
Category: Poems
Last of the Wild Places
It is the last of the wild places,drifts at the windy corners,a low, far-reaching expanse. The night was so transparent:mud flats and tidal pools;clumps of bushes made black stains;of human inhabitants there are none. Two black Norway spruces,desolate, utterly lonelywhere the road fell away. Greys and blues and soft greens,fresh furrows in the track.Skies are […]
This gift of poetry
is as precious as the new year’s rainreplaced by silent prayers of frosttempering trees with a white crust it’s as welcome as a new dawnof impossible colours, deep skywashed to breath-taking lucidity it’s the joy of low winter sunlighting up a butter-yellow aconitestill clenched fist-tight it’s the trees’ chill breathof leaf mulch, pine and barkand […]
Nellie
She was the waft of lavendergrowing by the front door,a squirt of lily of the valley,and the breezy scent of washing day. She was a little cockney sparrergreeting everyone by their moniker,trilling songs from the good old daysas she polished and flicked dust away. She was the rumble of her shopping trolleyon the broken pavements, […]
Encounter with a Fox
After rain,worms wrigglefrom their burrows,only to drownin the lane’s deep furrowspuddled with waterand clottedwith mud. Further along,where the shadowsgather, I turn to look backat the sinkingof the rosy sun and see,surreptitiouslypadding,a dog fox. He lowershis rusty headand gulps a mouthfulof worms, an entréebefore he slinks away,ears pricked towardsthe nearest frog or mouse,rabbit hutch or hen […]
Just a Little Longer
With lips of frozen berries I blow a kiss to barren fields and hills, waving brittle leaves still gripped by my twiggy fingers gloved in mist. Just a little longer, I promise. My woody hollows agape, I watch the skies with moss-sculpted eyes adoring ice and snow while you search hedgerows for signs of spring. […]
Old Year Lost, New Year Found
I’m ready for it, waiting, and the softness of the word reminds me that I have never seen a humming bird of muscle, artery and vein. Stippled glass refracts day, it stares at you face on. Waiting for the last tube, I felt the dusty wind. I am the buzz of a bee in quiet […]
Dreamless
It’s a dream that never comes to me: there is no blossoming chestnut tree, no garden of rioting summer blooms, not even a house with empty rooms. My childhood garden has no calm, no mother to rock me in her arms. Because it was so long ago, I search for it with heart of woe. […]
Just Visiting
I wander unknown streets, pavement hard beneath my feet. City detritus blows in wintry wind, dust and grime of the sinned against and sinning, surviving in brick and cement, not living. Lost like a dog or cat, snow in my hair, I feel as if I was never there. Just a ghost in the burbs, […]
A Celebration of Light in Darkness
It’s the rasp of a lucifer strike on a matchbox to light a candle prayer or birthday wish; the romance of a moonlight kiss; the twinkle of a star in the density of night; the slow creep of misty morning sunlight; the afterglow of sunset as it fades to twilight; fairy lights nestling in the […]
writing in north norfolk 