Guest Poems

You might think we would talk after Absent in the Spring. Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie) A desert station home for several daysno view to speak of, only space our books already read, no outside worldno view to speak of, only space. One day the train will just...

Pietà, inverted I meet you halfwayacross the wasteland of your mindto find you plonked on the ground,drawing circles in the dust.I sit down behind you,wrap myself around your frame,so small I could doubtyou gave birth to me – you,this shell I’m holding and rocking...

Talking to a Spider in the Bath(January, 2022) There you are in the corner of my eyescurrying sideways a black atom, a stain against enamela venomous intruder or is that me, stepping into theshower’s caul of steam? I notice how careful we areof each other a kind of...

When it is Time The beeches were the last to leave. Too stately maybeor too full of themselves they stayed on, blazed morefiercely copper in the sun, soaked up dusk until they inkedto darkness. Then they threw their arms around the stars,called them theirs, their one...

Traces Isaan, the vast rice-growing plateau in north-east Thailand Endless paddiesstencil the land, enmesh the living.Their waters smudge a setting sun’s inks. A handhas wiped leftover pigmentson a cloth of sky. A motorcyclescratches the landfor epidermic dust,...

Launching the Moon Does it really take two hands to toss it skywards? You’d think it could be done in the space of an owl’s blink, but you’re wrong. You cup this glossy thing, roll it over and over in your palm, hold it to the light and it’s a crystal ball crammed...

Finis This is it: the final leaving,The stars loitering and out of luck.The dice ceased rolling. All numbers up. This is the gone at the end of going,The rotted apple after knowing.The box nailed. The straw. The shut. The trap tripped, sprung through and up.The...

Free Spirit Bordering the road,but theatrical, the wayit looked like someonehad planted a gardenrich in wildness. A rocky outcropwith ragwort and willowherb,vetch and wild thyme –the hills beyond mantled with sun. I scatter you here,watch as a wisp of smokelifts along...

Jealous of the Listening Air She tells me her deafness is more complete,no sound penetrates her ears, masks are difficulties. Imperfect silence of devices switched off but stilloutside chunters; car engines, birdsong, the wind. Conversation in another room with no...

The Lighthouse Keeper In this season he knowswe are smaller than wind,as the storm blast singsthrough the boarded glass. He opens his doorto the sting and stab of rain,making his way as he leansunder the arc-lamp light. In the radio house he listensto distress codes a...

we sat holding the lamb we sat holding the lambRichard and Ithe field soft about uscold coming on below the ash treesand the farm buildingssilent as flint through the arrow slits how slight it wasand how meagre the pullof its miniature mouth on my fingera smear of...

The Moonlit Lakes of John Atkinson Grimshaw have all the hallmarks of ice, when seen througha hawthorn hedge or drystone wall,and you’d be forgiven, the way a witness,driven to description, not of a man,but of animals on the surface of the moon,is forgiven for seeing...

Rooks Each evening they appear at duskin ones and twos –return from distant foraging.Flapping untidy wings in laboured flight,they circle,gathering as a cawing group,heading for their roost in Hazelwood. Today, nest building in the tallest treesthat screen the...

Treasure Chests Dad decides to give us pocket money.Mum decides it’s better saved. She buys tinmoney boxes with painted timber panels,crossbands of brass and a central padlock. She holds out the chests as cash is passedfrom Dad to us into the slots. Eventually,mum...

A Latin American Sonnet CXCVI In a dense forest of the Gran Chaco stretch, ‘the hunting land’,Argentina’s largest known jaguar–the Qaramta–is on high patrol,it’s after giant anteaters, tapirs, capybaras, peccaries and standscrouched down by the riverbed, alert,...