I watch the mist of an autumn morning creep across the fields, shrouding the grey outline of the church and leaving a scattering of dew. In this moment I think of you still chasing dreams like a youthful robin tuning up in preparation for the spring, and me a wood pigeon with my loud and […]
Tag: Tuesday Poetics
Adage Adagio
Wisely and slow; they stumble that write fast and wisdom or music from their words escapes. Steady keeps the pace; if you slow down, you notice words you never heard before. Slow as a simile, stanzas don’t grow on busy sheets of paper and a rolling rhyme gathers no metre. In other words: more haste […]
Norfolk Rarebit
In the early years of marriage, North Norfolk winters were harsh. We huddled together in a draughty cottage, where the sash windows rattled throughout the night. Under pitch-black skies full of stars, we’d walk the dog along the coast and up the dunes to the haunted pub for a drawn-out pint before closing time. Dizzy with […]
Because Because Because
Because I was made up of so many parts, you added to me over time and couldn’t see the real me. Because you left me standing over there, coated in rusting tin, you never knew the real me. Because you wouldn’t give me back my heart I’m going to chop my way out of this […]
Back to School
In the first week of childhood’s September, going back to school was unreal, when I discovered a new sense of smell: I inhaled new uniform, shoes and plimsolls, and the scent of sharpened pencils in satchels. I breathed stale lost property masked with polish from parquet floors of classrooms and the hall; chalk-free blackboards and […]
Unseen to the Naked Eye
In the prelude to a storm, I watch the sky bruise, hear thunder introduce lightning in a breath before it pirouettes across the sky. As the show fades into the distance, ghosts appear in a pale fluttering of moths filling the garden with clouds. Unseen to the naked eye, in the grass or in the […]
Breaking the Silence
the moon greets the dawn shimmering from night’s silent well breaking the stark silence of a winter morning, a single crow calls in sleep’s dark cocoon there are sounds no one else can hear beyond the heart beat, air in lungs and surge of blood in ears from the depths of sleep, muffled ticks are […]
Sprig Spell
I build the spell with witch hazel, a woody frame to brighten gloomy days with spidery flowers in sunset sprays, sublime with spicy scent. I bind the spell with tendrils of evergreen ivy to ward off evil spirits, its heart-shaped leaves glossy with friendship and fidelity. I add some sprigs of rosemary to help you […]
Choking Nature
Humans record artistic impressions of patient Nature’s handiwork in a line of wind-tattered trees, a blanket hem along the skyline and curving sculptured hills, where skylarks rise from barley singing, and dissolve into the darkening welkin. Hills become shadows, the silence palpable over still-hot fields. And yet, in boroughs, towns and cities, greedy humans waste […]
Black and White
ebony raven snowy owl coal-black carrion ghost pristine white spirit wing-clipped to the Tower […]
