Poems

So unexpected —peaches in a Devon gardenthick furred, early fallers.In May you’d stroke each stamenwith a fine brush,going bud to bud,puckishyou watched for the fruitwilling summer’s ripeness.When you diedthe branches crackedlike cooling ashthe branches crackedwhen you died.Willing summer’s ripeness,you watched …

I would kiss you with budslet leaves fallon you. I would reach out fingersinto a song-filled skyto wake youat dawn. I would blossom inside,blooming with foliageamaze youin green. I would hold you tightlyin circles round my heart;burn high whenyou leave. …

Stepping out from Combestone Toracross moor hardened by a western windHorn’s Cross stands alone.A bruiser of hammered granite wounded with lichenits half formed arms reach outsurrendering to a cold sky. Monks stopped along the Maltern Waythreading their way through gravesto …

They picked wild garlic, dandelion leaves, early nettles,pennywort and primroses to make a salad, a bowlful of riverbankleft in a Tupperware box for lunch. They forgot it in the rush to catch the train.I froze it, with my unanswered questions, …

I shake them out like dice,relics from another age.They are evidence of softer years,still stained at the sharp endby touches of blood, knuckles of moonblossomedfrom raw gums. New-borns, levered out,usurped.They were hardly held. Now in dreamsmy mouthfills with teeth I …

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 …

They are warriors, these womenwho glide out onto the streetflashing their indicatorsmore than is strictly necessary.They open their faces to the sunlike poppies, waving to neighbours,their hands gnarled as oak bark,feet armoured in dirty slippers.They beat their bounds, natty in …

It didn’t turn out as I expected, the ache of life went its own way. I wasn’t ready for much beyond the softness of white wings I wanted to fall into their folds deep as cream, a wiping out of …

You were my middle C. An upright flush with polishon which we placed the most important things. You played in all weathers, dampers soaking up the years of voice, ending in the stillest pianissimo. Now labelled sheaves of music line …

I join you on your island twice a month. I am punctual, mooring carefully, so that I can leave on time. I find you hunkering down among the armchairs washed up in a clearing of white space. The walnut bureau …

I wake spinning like a compass seeking north, in a cold space of walls too far away, unpadded by books, where the windows are in the wrong place. I’ve swapped sirens and bumper parking, a scrap of grass strewn with …

If you fold the land in half their shores would almost touch. Two rivers: where mud slabs roll to the sea like harems of fat seals. Mud that drags down an unwary dog, run off the lead, eyes now wild …

(Severn Estuary) Under the bridge are the Welsh Grounds, shadows below the surface, mud, sand, and scree rising up at low tide as though just born. From Black Rock the last fishermen wade out into chuckling water, stroking the shoulders …

This year we only pick the fallers. Bramleys the size of two fat fists, sharp with green. They wait on the lawn like an unfinished game. There are fewer of us now so we don’t wrap them for sharing – …

The sea has purged itself spewing the beach with its dead. We wade out into a grave of colours from another world. Myths once hidden in mermaids’ purses seep into sand. High shored sea slugs weep. Star fish crackle under …

Gifts for the dying recommend foot cream. But I bought you a butter dish. There was comfort in butter, soft but solid, cradled in utilitarian china. We tried to add weight to your thin frame, ate mash and hot cross …

is a maze of steps taken blindfold across hard floors in calculated time a hedgeless field where task and tax chafe in twin boots that do not fit a softened hand that holds back the head, forcing down cold shots. …

The curtains stay shut, blocking the blackbirds’ cheerful coupling.  The quiet clock faces the wall. There is shame in the envy of birds. She buys new shoes with silent soles, a dress with side zips, cheaper underwear. Black pens mark …

Our grannies have packed up and gone away. They took their biscuit tins and gooseberry jam, soaked up a life of spills in cardigans, slid down the backs of armchairs with tea-trays. They wrapped up china rabbits, wound the clocks, …

In cases where there is uncertainty all will come to light. With furled wing, with clear wing with dusky, rosy under-wing all come to light. Even in the midst of flurry all will come to light. Flying from the dusk, …

(April 2020) I am trying to get away from myself but there is nowhere to hide. Into the silence come voices, announcing they are working, night and day. I believe them. They are busy losing themselves in screens. We are …