Guest Poems

Du Lac My lover was born under a wet star.He is not my first, but he is my favourite.The waters of the lake hold the shape of my body in their silt.I found him at the water’s edge,blurring into the shallows like a mirage.His hands slid over my shouldersand droplets...

Last Inhabitant Left on Earth Give me one place only –one area the size of Americatoo large to fathom where I willmake myself known asking formore space a fortress where tobuild upon and declaring myselfto you without animosity. What’s left on earth notlooking...

The Poisoner’s Poison Sleep has led me one step to the leftof lead.A periodic transition to thallium:softer certainly,like freezer bread thawing. But there’s still no stretch inside thisgrey,tasteless,odourless shape. Though they say sometimeswe live in secrets -that...

On Hearing of the Death of Benjamin Zephaniah 7.12.2023 Because they told me in the neutral grey of an ordinary day when the      sun neither shone nor     set,when the rain could do no more than drizzle, when all I was doing   ...

The Ground of our Music Now the warm moist air is alive with voices.Frogs are singing. Soft introspective crooningmakes the mild night throb with erotic feeling.Somewhere above them owls are calling, female to male; hauntingbreeze-blown signals float between houses....

Partition i.m. Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), mathematician Don’t be afraid. Like the first brushstrokeof the Mona Lisa, it begins simply enough. The partition of three is three,the partition of four is five. Meaning, you can arrive at three in threedifferent ways...

Twine Lazing on the tablestrung out with a casual loopit could be someone’s noosethe knot ready to slip tighteraround a waiting neck                                    ...

Abandoned When the A-Road Was Built How do you find St David’s church?You must search. It is here, but lies abandoned?Look beyond. I see towns, the heavy traffic.Take your pick. Its loneliness makes my heart sick.All progress has its consequence.And our children’s...

Cave Paintings, Onuke Kundi,Near Hampi, India Boulders of granite tossed intumbling piles around a flat oasisof date palms hold the plateausafe from intrusion. Camouflaged by the earth’s ochre,a bulge of rock with deer,where men, no longer sticks with sticks,come to...

The Ghost Magnolia in commemoration of the opening of the National Memorial forPeace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama, April 2018 Give me a ladder to climbthe ghost magnoliaon the corner of Pleasant Avenueto sit there with the sweet fragranceof the foot-wide blossoms...

The Perch The glacier on which I stand has become an island.Blue and white as the insides of clouds, it calvesinto the sea which is no longer ice, and the newbeings, the calves, sink slowly, but they sink. The glacier on which I stand is a mystery in whichI used to...

Evening Primrose You call me out as the light goesto watch our evening primroselemon-yellow petals splay. With more rain threatened for the weekend,sun come and gone all day,getting ahead of itself againcan a summer remember its springtime?Is it welcoming of autumn?...

The Discoverer Undiscovers 1948 Explorers take a trip to discover Antarctica.They take their leave of household chores.They take boats.They take cameras.Then they take white stretches of Antarctic iceonto film. Adventurers take trips too,to get away from home, and...

Walter Palmer (from Encounters with Oscar) plays painters parties poets –Oscar’s social round never ceasing Ernest Dowson, Aubrey Beardsleyand always Reggie and Robbie fascination of the fond-ofand the influential Lillie Langtry, Henry Irvingand always Reggie and...

After Chang Chi-Ho These twenty years of banishmentbecame a gift. Though it is saidI fled from the world, here I found it – my beloved, the moon,my friend, the sea,my shelter, the sky. I wake to the welcomeof dawn’s open doorand the gull’s spirit call. I didn’t flee...