A sunny afternoon spent by themoorings watching boats; a smelldrifts off the water ofsun cream, lazy days and freedom,when days are long and warm,and barbecues singe gentle winds.Holidaymakers escape the limits ofsweltering city life in summer;I watch them navigate the dyke as I lingernear a patch of water lilies inthe shade of trees. I feel […]
Tag: Golden Shovel
Year’s End
The initial blast of snow that would only last an hour or so – was it a figment of the fearful mind or a tentative reminder of the rapid passing of Time? I imagine the Old Man sifting moments at his desk; the book of life opens itself and he sets about drafting the rest […]
Dancing in the Centre of a Noun
(from Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Anne Hathaway’) Encircling all my words with his,he caressed them with a gentle touch,slipped them on as if they were ashoe, a glove, a familiar verbhe desired for his own; dancingtogether to a melody inquadruple time, echoing thebeat of hearts, we were the centreof the serious ceremony ofthe allemande: we were […]
Thundering Atlantic
Another Golden Shovel poem, with opening lines from Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘North’. You and I have finally returned. We found our way back to roots and branches of a family tree, long buried in a small churchyard near a strand in the wave-hammered storm-swept curve and wind-whispering embrace of a west coast bay. We […]
Digging for poems
My response to dVerse Meeting the Bar: the Golden Shovel Form Above, below and in between I trace familiar features with my Fumbling, feathery finger. Up, down, under and Over, I feel well-worn skin with my Tentative thumb Memorising the Tensions before I squat Over the ink pot, filling a pen That rarely rests Knowing […]
writing in north norfolk 