Mothspell

I wander in the standing stones, gather objects for potions: hemlock parts and gossamer, eye of toad and an owl’s feather. A celestial light show sparks and suddenly, without a flutter, a moth is trapped in a halo of moonlight and I am  rapt; lured by a death head’s powdered pinion – a fatal attraction. […]

Bread-Making in Winter

For months frayed foliage has covered earth, the agèd year is faded to sepia shades and now it turns again to white and grey with early dusk as winter draws its breath. The frigid bite of January’s mellowed, outdone by the aroma, as it lingers, of yeast and flour wafting from your fingers, familiar scent […]

With the Volume Turned Down Way Too Low

I hope it’s only temporary, this cotton-wool muffle of everyday sound, with random crackle of static, constant shower of white noise and high-hat cymbal of gravel on an empty road. I’m bombarded with percussion when I want to hear words, a human voice, the television and the ring of the telephone. Until normal service is […]

If I hadn’t written that poem

‘The world is never the same once a [good] poem has been added to it’. Dylan Thomas If I hadn’t looked up to search the heavens, would my soul ever have been soothed? I waited patiently for shooting stars to zip across the deepest, darkest winter sky – but the clouds were dense, obscured the […]