Her names originate from myth and legend, and she bears them with a graceful nonchalance. From the Celtic word for sun, Gráinne, daughter of Cormac, was promised to the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill. She could be a descendant of Gráinne Ní Mháille, landowner of Mayo and Irish pirate queen. It’s hard to pronounce, even if […]
Tag: NaPoWriMo
[when i think of you]
after e.e. cummings i see your bike left haphazard on the edge of the forbidden cricket pitch fringed with golden hued birds-foot trefoil and clover, sky overhead cross-hatched with vapour trails, like the lines that sketch your face now; your face then was freckled, your breath sweet with bubble gum, lips stained orange with the […]
Reviewing a Pomegranate
We purchased it for mixingwith garlic and honey, a dressingfor grilled halloumi and sourdough toast. Its orb glowed crimson,the blade split smooth skin,spilling the ruby jewels within, and stained our fingers with fruity blood.Its sticky flesh held heavenly food,the luscious seeds tiny surprises crushed between our incisors,trickling juice upon the tongue,a fecund fruit with a […]
The Flats by the Playing Field
1. Too many stairs to the top floor, and yet I ran up them, brave and unafraid of falling, but more scared of the piss-scented lift that always stopped between floors. 2. If you bumped into a neighbour, leaping downstairs was easier, even on the way to the grocery store. it was an escape, the […]
Bustle
The bustle in a mourning house on the morning of a loved one’s death takes away your breath; it’s the solemnest of industries and the sorriest of duties. You sweep up your heart and set your love apart, petrified with the certainty you’ll not use them until eternity. Kim M. Russell, 22nd April 2023 ‘Death […]
Anxiety
My poem won’t do what I want it to. I chew my pen, my nails, my lip and resort to the key- board. No change. Words seem to have lives of their own. They’re off to have adventures, without me, they don’t care about poetry. Yet, they’ve guided me here, to a wordingfount, where poems […]
Strange Object
What is this object, this slab of pulverised fibre that was once a living plant? No life remains here, only cyber inhabitants of a starved planet. Yet here it is: this wad of paper tattooed with ancient symbols, a human record of the signals transmitted far into hyper- space for thousands of years, trapped in […]
The Landing at the Top of the Stairs
My five year old self sits on the toilet, door open so I can see the top flight of stairs inhabited by shadows from a skylight. There’s a closed door at the end of the twilight; escaping from the keyless lock is sunlight full of dust motes that float. I am torn between a monster […]
The Emptiness of War
A city empty of children in a cold, dystopian shell (Janice Turner, The Times, 15th April 2023) At the end of the war, after years of hiding,Bombs had destroyed their homes. Children and mothers returned to a subsidingDystopian shell, to cities of bare bones. Enemy soldiers came, destroyed and, conscienceless,Fleeing the scenes of devastation, they […]
Thoughts on a Quince
ancient symbol of Aphroditewho took a fruity biteto perfume her kiss pregnant with creativityready to give birth to poetry a foam of spring flowers unfoldswhile autumn’s orbs are goldpear-shaped and aromatic pregnant with creativityready to give birth to poetry through branches sunlight glintsoff a quickening quincecreating a floodlight of fruit pregnant with creativityready to give […]
writing in north norfolk 