The old trellis is still standing, top-heavy with verdant honeysuckle leaves and studded with dark pink buds. Below the greenery, old woody branches tangle with dusty shadows, hunchbacked hollows of musty undergrowth. Straining against my hands, secateurs crack and break brittle branches, their sharp echoes scattering birds and, deep inside the remains of an old […]
Tag: dverse Poets Pub
Ghost of a Chance
What is this twilight, this world of shadow? Neither day nor night, we name it limbo, the crumbling ledge on the fiery edge of hell. We think we know it well, and yet the glow of hellfire is tempting compared with the empty darkness of uncertainty. Anything to stave a spiritual void beyond the grave. […]
Picnic Under the Stairs
When I was nine or ten, we moved from a two-bedroom ground floor maisonette to a three-bedroom top floor maisonette on the same estate. I got the box room: it had a huge box that was the top of the stairs, which took up almost a quarter of the floor space, leaving room for a […]
Embracing the Moon
You never fail to rise to the occasion. How often have we stood face to face? You, white balloon, and me not immune to silver- tongued charms. I wake in your embrace and watch you fade as the sun nudges you from the s k […]
Maenad Madness
What you doing with that ivy, sister? Pretending it’s a snake like that one on Instagram. Didn’t we get wasted last night, man! Yeah, we had a right scream! My lips are still black with all the red wine. My head’s all over the place with ecstasy. LOL – mine’s so bad I can’t see. […]
Breakfast Renga
early morning rain the dry sound inside the cabin of oatmeal cooking comfort in heat of a pot […]
April Morning
The morning’s dust-tongued with short-lived frost and seabirds moon-blown from the coast compete with bell-voiced wood pigeons. These early muffle-toed strolls are full of promise: spring winds roar in a leaf-foamed coppice and all the quiet moments in between, while hare-heeled boots touch damp earth with a kiss. No dark-vowelled dreams could have predicted this […]
Plight of the Sand Martins
This is a true story of the sand martins’ plight on their annual return to the Norfolk coast to nest and lay eggs after a strenuous flight. Is human comfort more valuable than the right of birds endangered by nets and posts? This is a true story of the sand martins’ plight. Erosion threatens a […]
Ghost in the Night
It’s a ghost in the night, keeping me awake with its whispering, muttering and sighing, and nudges in my poetic ribs. It pokes me with imagery and ties me up in allegory until I reach for notebook and pen (which I left on the armchair). Empty-handed (in inky midnight darkness) I creep gingerly downstairs. It’s […]
River Cascading
Between deep gorges water flows: springs that glint over moss and lichen or energetic streams that tumble, shifting and grinding over rocks and boulders. Between deep gorges water flows, fizzing with minerals and petrichor, full to the brim with April showers, springs that glint over moss and lichen. In summer months, watercourses dry where water […]
writing in north norfolk 