Latest Poetry

first day out with Aoife   two ‘Seaside Special’ day returns to ‘kiss me kwik’ and candyfloss, a ‘pirate cruise’ around the bay -  no extra cost   in the middle of nowhere a juddering halt – the guard announced ‘cows on the track’   Aoife looked out the window,  ‘it’s a sign, come on, let's go!’   we walked an ancient track-way - a gothickry of gnarly trees   Aoife broke the silence, ‘this ...

One of many daily conversations with a good friend who's writing his father's biography. (He’s finished chapter fifteen) ...

Forty years on ...

One from long ago. Don't kmow when my muse may reappear. “I’m sober,” he said, “and I love you. Come home.” And the pines on the mountain danced with branches outspread in a green ecstasy, the birds sang Ode To Joy and rebellious hope flooded the sky and fields. The forest flared with green flames, harps sang in every stream and waterfalls thundered applause. Homeward I sped through Betws and Blaenau, through Rhaedr reeling along ...

For 'birthed' read 'written' - for 'I' read 'imagined' - for 'salvation' read 'home' - the rest is nothing. How do you see it, I wonder ...

Look through any window.   I live in a new house. two-up, two-down, on the periphery of a market town.   The door knocker is made of brass and all the casements have mullioned glass.   From the upper window I can see distant hills and a verdant meadow full of daffodils.   I wonder if those jonquils could be the same that inspired Wordsworth prompting him to claim   he'd seen a host of ...

I'm ashamed to be born as a human being,  doubly ashamed to be born as a man, I wouldn't choose to end my life,  but I'm waiting to die.  ...

  A speech by Sarojini Naidu Without peace, without absolute, determined, delivered 'warlessness',  every inch of growth and development is meaningless - an insipid showpiece of plastic progress; it takes us miles away from what we truly merit,  equanimity, and happiness ...

somewhere in Catalonia   la Plaça fills sedately as  ancients in wheelchairs gather in the shade of wild olive and myrtle trees to smoke and think nod and doze   they used to mutter bitterly of the desecration of La Capella de Santa Eulalia  by 'Nationalists' in thirty-six   but that subject has run its course now they sit in remembrance silence,   a silence broken by cockerel dodging squawking hens  stray dogs snapping pigeons ...

True be told 'ere ...

This is a little piece I wrote, as I danced on a field of whimsy. I had the answer in my hand and I lost it. A forgotten face whispers a secret to me. Like smoke blown into the wind. It's all a trick, there is no past. Please don't leave me, alone, all alone. Embraced by the darkness, dimming under such weight. Everybody is a God, brighter than a star, faster than light. Sound ...

In a world full of wonders, twinkling stars, singing birds,  wandering rivers, bountiful seas, oceans, mysterious forests, majestic mountains, in the midst of all the  mesmerising, nature-abiding sentient beings, only the supreme of all is accursed.  Alas! Alas! Alas!  If any spell could deliver me from this shame and guilt,  I'd turn into a rat or a bat,  an ant or an elephant, or into any other being beneath the  patient, priceless, paradise,  I'd live ...

mission hall   Charles Street, Hull has turned into a depression of broken window shuttered shops -  no trace remains of the Pioneer Store or the anonymous entrance to the Fig Tree Gospel Hall   where bags of jumble sale left-overs half-blocked the door and a broad Yorkshire pig farmer - stood sentry keeping rowdy sinners out - and backsliding brethren in   he shook each hand vigorously -  crushing first-timers’ knuckles passing out hymnals ...

This is a true story - bowdlerised to protect the innocent ...

A family get together in Madrid, and my wife had an important announcement to make ...