Guest Poems

Anvils I have this dreamof anvils droppingfrom a quiet sky. A scene in a B-moviefrom the Cold War erain glorious black and white. A heavenly protestfrom the gods of waras they lay down their tools. A Dali paintingof shadows fallingon the face of the earth. Or just a...

Satisfaction Sometimes, it is the common things that give satisfaction,such as chopping onions, peppers and tomatoesdespite me rarely enjoying cooking apart from the result,sharing food with the one who brings some real point to life,one who lifts me above the...

A Winter Morning Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm! (Lear) My heart forgets …(Burns, ‘A Winter Night’) The globe has got its change on and frostthe artificer has strolledmadly through the world with a...

She Sews the Starsafter a quilt by Harriet Powers Harriet takes strips of calico,old dungarees. Stitches storiesto warm her children. Job prays for his enemies. Moses lifts up the serpentin the wilderness. A dark day in May. The stars fall.In the Garden of Eden, God’s...

The Seducer’s Hat Like a skydiver about to plunge for the first timefrom the opened plane into breathlessness I stand pressed to the last strip of blackbefore sunlight, gazing across eight feet of blazing tarmac – it takes such courage, this tackling head-onof the...

Grave Sweeping Every Ching Ming, April showers weepmisty tears across the land, seepinginto gaps of loss. Gifts of paper energisethe spirits (a suit, a watch, a house) as warpingflames consume ingots, paper-gold flecks on the vergeof a hot red tin: the borderline...

Elephant Caretaker I cannot imaginestealing an elephant,notorious as they arefor being difficultto compress comfortably,but elephant caretakersuse sharphooks to find the tenderparts of elephants’mouths and inner ears,the secret malleabilityto make the beastsinto...

Circus Act some days it’s the high-wirewe balance on that thin pathunknown danger either side on others it’s the trapezeI swing to you to make the catcha moment of faith above the void today it’s contortionismI put both feet behind my headyou fit yourself into a tiny...

The Conundrum of Proportion You try to force your arm into dolly’s dressbalance her hat like a pimple on your head,crush her cardboard-box bed with your giant toddlerbody, puzzled by further mysteries of perspective:big or close; small or far away; the way your...

Another Land There is another land. A land of rockand falling water. Valleys deep in shadewith railway stations blue with rising mist. There’s a city of sunshine built on slopesthat flows down a hill in a torrent of stoneto water. Gardens hang in steps of green. In...

Remembrance The pin pricks like a memory.She tries again,Almost stitching the plastic poppyTo her chest, over the heartBleeding past into present. Years have progressedBut the wound won’t heal:A scout’s compass, it pointsTo loss and leads to a monumentMarking her...

George Orwell Typing at his Desk – a Photo Cigarette (always), reek of paraffin, the flintyJura house; those poor, rotting, blood-leaking lungs: he pounds out, a year or so from death, his last bleak book – I ballsed it up…so ill… he wrote– that cracked, wheezy laugh....

Gull Island Unfamiliar shorea broken doorsill to a part-remembered landthe dismantling sun bleedsinto a rough-hewn slab of seaand seabirds scream their warningand welcoming of all that is unfixed,uncharted, unrehearsed. Demonstrative as daysavvy as bull terriersand...

St Lucy’s Day 1This dark year’s endis a short night’s passagefor the veteran oak. John Donne’s passionruns centuries beyondhis lover’s last embrace. Neither recompenseoff-sets our final days. But let’s light a New Yearfrom the night that’s gone,bring to...

Kestrel kestrel hoveringthe moment before her stoopas our first remembered falcon the field behind the cottageempty farm buildings and twilight fallinglike a gathering of ghosts shadow dropping from the fencepostthat could be a buzzardthe instant, unexpected movement...