Guest Poems

Writing in Ice It gets harder to claimthe lie of few summers livedwhen so many wintershave taken their toll. The deceiver fools you.More fool you. Writing in ice on frozen bonecontusions of ruptured words,mortality’s woundson the immortal soul. The reaver robs...

Gap ione birdfor weeks the young boy saw one bird on every wire iiyesterday, it fanned its tail feathersand he felt his growing bones reacta shared balancing act, a mirroron the northside of the citydown as far as the dock bridge iiiwhere yesterday toohe saw an otter...

Winter in these parts We lug paving slabs onto wheelie bins,Coax the smaller animals into the spare room,Sling frayed hawsers over outhouses and hen coops.Glacial swamps appear from underground.We cradle our children from school, weight them downWith rocks, free up...

apple blossom if I were to disappear from here, beneaththe wing of the day, where the apple blossomsemerge a whitish pink, and the bee hovers mesmerised – where the hellos gather upthen spill open like flowers, and the beeretreats as the light fades, the white petals...

The Dreamer’s Song We wish, we worry, we long to conquer things,but is the world stage ours to impose on like perpetual star gazers, never satisfied or contentwith a spinning planet that needs our care? What is it about the wild storm inside? Fuellingour edginess, we...

Angels My Angels don’t answer. They never do. Sources disagreeon how many each of us has, but often have I pleadedfor mine to show themselves or leave at least some evidence.Never a whisper or sign, no sudden ruffling air on a windlessday, no bright light at the end...

To those who will come after us after Bertolt Brecht who will work longer to pay off the debtswe have accumulated, rememberhow many things we had to buy,how many interesting things there were to do,how many places in the world to visit.The cars, in which we went...

And As When And as when the houses of Pompeiwere covered in ash, heavy enoughto cause buildings to collapse, and the pyroclastic flows,mixtures of lava blobs and gasran through the city faster than a horse could run,the horses trapped in harnessin the stable, bodies...

Sceach / Uncommon Knowledge The last days of January lap & settlebut, twice now, I have heard birdsat dusk. The skylight that slantson the landing of my parents’ houselooks unfamiliar for a second:some things are seen and seen again.Dust-mauve, that swatheof clear...

Car Boot Sale Stall as a Metaphor For Life Do you turn up at 8am, front of the queue,car full of desirable items from an elderly relativewhich savvy buyers peer at through cupped hands,eyes creased, noses fogging the glass,clammy at the thought of bagging a Clarice...

Water He spends fifteen minutes bringing stuff in,makes himself at home on the bathroom flooras if he’s arrived at a favourite camp site. I hear him thinking behind the door,his expertise the commodity of silence. He reminds me of a person I’ve seen before,a...

Heartwood Sheltered by young cypressesand thick-leaved olive trees,a plum tree stands in my family garden. The knobby branches hold clustersof round, juicy plums in summerso heavy they twist. The smiling crop persists for a month at least;the taste is so sweet, it...

Brussel Sprouts When the February sky is weighty with clouds and the wind,a ferocious animal, knocks over fences and rickety sheds,rushes rubbish down streets, rocks trees madly,tears off their branches and crashes any it can to the ground, when the paper is packed...

‘when’             whenlike a falling flower-print cotton dress            has dropped its round spoor                        in the breathy silence...

The Brownfields of England This “Go-Between” of a summerthe heatwave’s a marqueand hours and days repeat themselves          like a slo-mo film. This chameleon summera hare jogging in a fieldturns out to be a man       ...