Throughout history, women have taken pigeon steps, played ‘What’s the time?’ with Mr Wolf, as if our feet were bound, crinolines rigid and tightly laced, ankles hidden – we knew our place. Now we have shredded ribbons, learnt to march and ride our bikes burnt bras and held on to property, paving the way to […]
Category: Poems
A poem to sum up my feelings in this post.
Humming into the Wind
Through sullen branches of ancestry, a deadened wind soughs a song of loss. Straggling souls skim the trees in skeins towards an ancient rookery to caw themselves to sleep. They echo through insomnolent dreams, but silvered by moonlit poetry I hum against the windy wings, through a mouthful of mouldering leaves, and the succubi of […]
Early Spring Landscape
We walk into a landscape where flowers light up verges, they peep between the hedge gaps, adorn churchyards and copses. Where flowers light up verges, the earth is not just greenscape, throughout churchyards and copses a spring colourwash escapes. The earth is not just greenscape, it glows with yellow urges; the spring colourwash escapes and […]
The Point of a Wizard’s Hat
It’s filled with language, thoughts and magic that escape like clouds to the atmosphere. The full moon shudders, she knows how tragic it is for wizards to live in fear. In fear of what, I hear you ask, with power at their fingertips? Fear of fickle fingers pointing, bramble sharp tongues and lies on gossips’ […]
Do butterflies get drunk
on fermenting sap and pollen, like wasps and bees? And are there epic stories imprinted on wings that flicker as they fly, quirky cartoons like the ones we drew in the corners of our exercise books? I’ll have to wait until drowsy summer days, when I’ll hide in the long grass behind the willow and […]
Kölsch (revisited)
Kölle Alaaf! I miss the echo in the streets, the crowds on Rudolfplatz and Neumarkt, the oompa pa of familiar Fastelovend songs and cries of ‘Kamelle!’ as sweets hailed down. You helped me dress up as a clown. I drank cold Kölsch, ate salty Pommes mit Mayonnais’. You taught me the words to ‘Mer losse […]
Nesting
On the rooftop, sparrows twitter, peering quizzically from the gutter; they flurry feathers, swoop and pirouette, dodging in and out of privets. Peering quizzically from the gutter, they carry bits of twig and moss, dodging in and out of privets to patch and line their new-built nests. They carry bits of twig and moss and, […]
Goodbye Mundane Monday
I wake up early and greet another day, a mundane Monday, damp, cold and grey. Winter should be over, or so the buds tell me, there should be sunshine and daffodils. I watch a smoking feather, a skylark rising, and then a second hovers above the winter field – then another, and another ascend into […]
The Clock of Tides and Stars (revised)
I smile at the clockwork birds ploughing sand, their black legs whirring, wound like clocks by the pull of Earth, a splash of spangled sanderlings. Ploughing sand, their black legs whirring, steered here by a cosmic force, a splash of spangled sanderlings followed the ancient paths of stars. Steered here by a cosmic force from […]
The Clock of Tides and Stars
I smile at the clockwork birds ploughing sand, their black legs whirring, a splash of spangled sanderlings with a wintry breeze beneath their wings. Ploughing sand, their black legs whirring, steered here by a cosmic force, with a wintry breeze beneath their wings, they followed ancient paths of stars. Steered here by a cosmic force […]
writing in north norfolk 