Guest Poems

The Deliverance of St Peter David Teniers the younger, c.1645 On one side of the massive door,which stands unaccountably open,the guards, so steeped in reality it hurts,are playing dice, that means of transport fromreality into some other sphere of things,where it’s...

On not Being the Last Bird to Sing my child’s face, stretchedin pain like a Noh mask, relaxesand she sleeps at last,leaving the land around usto lie awake under a crust of starsthat mists the sky with light likethe illuminated face of a watch.On the hillside, a hare...

Let’s Do Cartwheels and watch the great world spin.Everyone will be on the green againplaying football or tip the can.Parents will pop out every now and thento check we’re still alive and then some.All the flowerbeds will be shakingwith laughter, ickle secrets...

Daffodil Bulbs I could stare at these tubs of dirt all day,waiting for the miracle. This is where I buried them,swaddled in their papery skins now wintering in a secret hideawaylike swollen nodes of sleep. I envy their dark cocoons of privacy. One more change of...

The Sides of an Obelisk Three thousand five hundred are the yearsI’ve travelled, past all my known forebearspast several kings named Henry outbreaks of the plague there, and thereto be pinpointed along time’s gradientwhere creatures are shaped into language and...

A Flash I described the painted saints,carved animal heads on pewsin a medieval church.I'm going through hell, you said, and questioned whether loss of hearingwas worse than losing sight. You knew a womanblind and deaf who'd learned to speak:with balloons in her...

Two Worlds Season of Christmas cheer we adore thee,We adore thee and greet theeAnd men sleep outside in the streets.We greet thee with carols and cardsAnd prepare lavish fare,And men sleep outside in the openWith feet that are bare,With feet that are crippledAnd hands...

On the Morning of Christmas Day it’s mildacross our ungrazed fieldwhose thorns and clay have yet to know a freeze.The clouds in the east proclaimhow every wise man’s dreamof frost fair, snow and angel, is old news.Nature, abandoned at the Pole,feels something cracking...

Nativity Scene Besançon Book of Hours (15th Century) The saddled donkey seems to be eatingJoseph’s cake-like halo or at least testingwith mouth and nostrilswhether it might be edible. In his carpenter’s hands,bald and bearded Joseph is holding the babywrapped in...

The New Estate Uninterrupted, our view towards the dawn,beyond silhouetted horses near the hedge.Soon, across the lightening sky, first birds flew –in this pleasant way each breaking day was set. But builders bought the land, they lifted hedgerows,trampling wild...

Falling Like Feathers Hushed, each Christmas we wait with breath-held hopethat the Barn Owl, pale queen of the night dark skywill spread her strong broad wings to dropwhispering with a flutter and rustle of promisewhite tales of long ago, once upon a time...

Raising the Spirit Always such an unsettling time of year,Christmas with its fake joviality departed, thoughseasonal lights still blink from nearby gardens andabandoned Christmas trees lie forlornly atthe roadside, drenched by the incessant rain.Meanwhile the new year...

Aftermath We’d gone to Dublin in search of artand found William Orpendispatched to record the Great War, all those boys in muck and mire across French countrysidethe gallery full of pink, land and sky in pastel shades,not the colours you expect of brutal conflict....

Edward Burra: Never Tell Anybody Anything In the endI gave up on people, my layered clowns,my boxers’ lips, my stroke-struck faces. InsteadI painted their standing gravestones, the long slicksof their tracks across the landscape. Sometimes,despite my best attempts,...

Red Hares When I think of the haresome raggedy, angular graceraces through my mind. It comes unlooked forwhen chatting of nothing,rounding an August cornfield hedge, up and away across sharp stubble,square to the ground in an upright scurry,arcing its route to distant...