Poems

the unnamed scuttle back
into the corners

while the named lie still,
designated,

familiar strangers, returned to
like the first paragraph of an unread book.

The unborn, now approaching middle age,
peep from half-ripped wrapping.

The might-have-been lovers,
drift out through their cigarette smoke,

lift up a glass from across the room,
turn away through the door frame.

The lost friend hides her kohl-smeared face,
shakes out long black hair and never calls.

Trace out their names, think how differently
days could have been, or how very much the same.

The Poetry Lighthouse

Open the name drawerRead More

High notes rise,
staccato.
There’s a hum
in the head.

Fingers tap
touching
each chance
each day.

Now evenings don’t end
in song or story.
Silent shoulders
mourn.

Blank pages flap
flying as kites.

The Poetry Lighthouse

WordlessRead More

Women in green houses
lick their fingers clean
draw lines across the glass
until they are barred in.
When darkness comes
they plant tulip bulbs
under a January wolf moon
packing them in with moss
dropped by crows.

They wait for the children
but they do not come;
they sold their blood
for a ticket, putting in
the distance. Now the women
grow big breasted, their faces
once lovely as Spring
are bandaged like their pots
against the frost.

Spellbinder magazine – Spring 2025

WinteringRead More

So unexpected —
peaches in a Devon garden
thick furred, early fallers.
In May you’d stroke each stamen
with a fine brush,
going bud to bud,
puckish
you watched for the fruit
willing summer’s ripeness.
When you died
the branches cracked
like cooling ash
the branches cracked
when you died.
Willing summer’s ripeness,
you watched for the fruit,
puckish,
going bud to bud
with a fine brush,
that May, stroking each stamen.
Thick furred, early fallers,
peaches in a Devon garden.
So unexpected —

Green Fuses Vole Poetry Competition Spring 2024

Stroking peachesRead More

I would kiss you with buds
let leaves fall
on you.

I would reach out fingers
into a song-filled sky
to wake you
at dawn.

I would blossom inside,
blooming with foliage
amaze you
in green.

I would hold you tightly
in circles round my heart;
burn high when
you leave.

Published in Clarion 1

If I swallowed a treeRead More

Stepping out from Combestone Tor
across moor hardened by a western wind
Horn’s Cross stands alone.
A bruiser of hammered granite wounded with lichen
its half formed arms reach out
surrendering to a cold sky.

Monks stopped along the Maltern Way
threading their way through graves
to Buckfast honey and garden beans.
Tellers counted their flock, cows rubbed flanks,
now walkers lean against its iron backbone,
pausing for half a sandwich.

This is not a marker of a beginning
nor an end, but of constant passing,
where searching doesn’t end in stone,
but to an undistinguished path
filled with voices from the past
guiding us from behind.

Pens of the Earth 2nd prize- 2024 competition

Horn’s CrossRead More

They picked wild garlic, dandelion leaves, early nettles,
pennywort and primroses to make a salad,

a bowlful of riverbank
left in a Tupperware box for lunch.

They forgot it in the rush to catch the train.
I froze it, with my unanswered questions, for later.
Now the primroses shiver under misted plastic
like pale faces of children drowning in green water.

Published in Green Ink – Forage

VisitorsRead More

I shake them out like dice,
relics from another age.
They are evidence

of softer years,
still stained at the sharp end
by touches of blood,

knuckles of moon
blossomed
from raw gums.

New-borns, levered out,
usurped.
They were hardly held.

Now in dreams
my mouth
fills with teeth

I spit them out,
one by one, until
they are all gone.

Published in Literary Mama

Milk teethRead More

Don’t come to me like a dull bell at noon.
Come with a sea shanty in your eyes,
pink shells in your pocket and salt on your fingertips.

Bring me gorse humming with heat from the cliff,
squill, thrift and sea poppies.
Bring lace skimmed from the edge of a wave.

When you go, leave sand on each stair
so I can still feel your rub at every step.

First published in Smoke No 70 Summer 2023

Sand on the stairsRead More

They are warriors, these women
who glide out onto the street
flashing their indicators
more than is strictly necessary.
They open their faces to the sun
like poppies, waving to neighbours,
their hands gnarled as oak bark,
feet armoured in dirty slippers.
They beat their bounds, natty in berets,
sometimes with cats on their laps.
We witness these jaunts but never stop to talk.
We fear these pavement days. Soon,
we too will leave dusty unused rooms
sallying forth shoeless into the blessed sun.

First published by Typishly June 2023

Ode to mobility-buggy ridersRead More