If only I could float through the mists of time in Morgana’s enchanted boat, to the island of the apples, that fertile fortunate isle that is leaf and sunlight dappled: the place where Excalibur was made and Arthur was laid to rest, with nine queens to watch over him. I imagine how I’d find the […]
Category: Poems
Poetichor
The scent of a poem can drive me to distraction, like spores from a page of mildewed putrefaction, accumulated fluff and dust from under the bed, or the grey and blue mould on a slice of old bread; sometimes it’s cherry blossom dancing in trees, an explosion of honeysuckle on a summer breeze, a meadow […]
A Reply to Mother Earth
They read the wildfires, listened to the songs of floods, tornadoes and whales, conversed with owl and eagle, howled with wolves at the full moon. But they ignored them, too attached to throwaway gratification, the centres of their own worlds, to care about the real world. It took a whisper, the gasp of a pandemic, […]
Comfort in Cookies
We stood by a field, watched waves of leafy greenness rolling, wind-blown and whispering, born from earth and sky. We stood and breathed the scent of stiff-stalked oats flourishing and bearing flavoursome, nourishing crisp-cased seeds. I held your hand on that summer walk, a slightly calloused hand normally used to work, sometimes to cook and […]
Spinning
that feeling of childhood revolution with both arms outstretched and the whole world condensed into horizontal lines of a spinning top when you dare yourself to look up at a sky that’s about to pop think you’ll never stop and then you drop onto a grassy spot you roll over among daisies and the world […]
Bird-scribbled
‘A little bit of bread and no cheese,’ the scribble larks* beg – I know, they feast on bugs and seeds – the notes of their familiar song fall like rain from the sky. At my feet, another message scribbled in the intricate patterns on an empty egg, a warning of their demise through dearth […]
Two More Weeks
I have two more weeks of dislocation from the world until I can hook myself back up to life outside. How will I feel? Scared I will freeze at the first glimpse of a masked face? Unable to navigate a supermarket? Incapable of measuring social distance by eye without a ruler? Lost for words? Inside […]
I am the Blue of my Mother’s Eyes
I am the songs that my mother sang to me the dust of Coty powder on her nose, cheek and chin the peach lipstick imprints on the paper hankie that she threw with panache into the nearest waste bin I am the softness of my mother’s favourite sweater the way her chiffon scarf wafted in […]
The Ghost Returns
I gave up following little footprints in the dust long ago. I was bored with finding them on the table, wooden floor and stairs, invisible to everyone but me. I’d started to feel sick each time I felt her fingers flick and pinch my arms or stroke my cheek, and moved to the other side […]
That Look
I sat among the guests on bales of prickly straw, the afternoon sun hot on heads and backs, the expanse of Tuscan sky a perfect blue. And so, daughter, were you, perfect in your wedding dress, in your hands a pastel bouquet and single flower in your hair. I admit, I shed a tear, feeling […]
writing in north norfolk 