Poetry

A selection of some of my poetry. All work here is protected by copyright and should not be copied or reproduced without permission.

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Found

I lie covered in leaves in muddy dark.
Two jagged sprays of oaks for eyes, one bright
and oval, gently rippled beech for mouth.
My heartbeat pulsing with the ground beneath,
an echo of the life below and in
and all around. In branching, sucking root,
and creeping vine, burrowing worm and
dormant seed. Hidden, like me, from light but not
from life, connected to that tangled web.

So safe and warm it is, my peaty bed,
but lonely too, with only whispers soft
of secret, scuttling things to share my dreams.
A sense of something missing, felt, but still
unseen: a longing for a kindred soul.
And yearning fingers start to creep and crawl
their way through dirt and stone, in hope of reaching
something living feeling breathing, just like me,
to cling to in the dark, to take root in.

Surprise. As rough and hard transforms to smooth
and soft, yielding to my fingers with their own.
I turning comprehend our bed was laid
for two, companions in our solitude.
A face, as soft as rain with eyes as blue
as stars meets mine, with lips of apple leaves
to press to mine, just for a moment, till
we deem to rise, up and out, into the sun.
Our roots still joined together, intertwined.

June 2010

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On Happiness

As you grow, my little sprout, you will come
to find it out
that happiness is fleeting,
depleting
from the very point
you find it, grasp it, for without doubt
however hard you try to keep it
into corners safely sweep it,
you’ll find it seep like water out
the gaping chinks of mind’s cracked cup,
that needs a constant fill back up.

And yet

There was a time,
one perfect day
of wide blue skies and seas of grey,
where happiness did land sublime,
on to my waiting lap did climb
and like the sand you played with,
shaded
from the sun, I grabbed it up
and for a moment held it, melded
to my heart, and not one grain chose to depart
and even now stubbornly clings,
and in my memory softly sings

and won’t let go.

May 2010

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Pride
(See the photograph that inspired this poem here).

She opened up her hands
and there sat pride,
ingrained in every line and crease.

Like grime it clung
and clogged the pores,
smothering potential underneath.

Hands that could write
beauty out
in free uncensored streams

or paint a secret masterpiece
no stroke begrudged,
If only she could wash them clean.

No chance, she says,
and spreads-out wide her pride to show:
indelible as skin, worn thin
and hard as cold, dead bone.

April 2010

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An Accidental Meeting
Based on the story of the moment when my grandparents met. You can read an early draft of this poem and more about the story behind it here.

Her sensible shoes make their own way
up the sun-bleached Jersey coastal paths.
Pausing, curiously, to look at cold, grey stone
where so recently the enemy had crouched
waiting with empty bellies. Empty shells,
occupied now by silence and by thrift,
the pink reflected in her hand-sewn dress,
her flushed and eager cheeks.

Choosing rest over respectability she sinks
down to watch the fulmars dive, lost in thought,
until a man-shaped shadow blocks the sun.
Looking up, a widow’s peak nods down, politely,
with a click of heels that is distinctly continental.
A widening of eye involuntarily betrays
her fear of ghosts returned, or worse,
until he smiles and speaks.

Her mother’s cries of what becomes of girls alone
in foreign parts, are lost on coastal winds.  And she,
three hundred miles away, all hope of weddings fading
with the years, wonders why she strangely feels
the urge to laugh and cry, as, unbeknownst,
one tired refugee of older years, divorced no less,
and his future bride, her wilful, wandering, eldest child,
in one moment meet.

April 2010

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New

I lie in sickly soft fluorescent glow,
numb in mind but not in bone.
Ten marathons run hard and long
in just one day and night.

My eyes are fixed on the plastic crib
for signs of life, for need. I do not know you
yet my every nerve is tuned
to each new foreign snuffle sound.

And then, a cry. I pounce
and join you in your wail as stitches pull,
looking down in shock at this strange weight
my arms have never known.

A red mouth opens wide with rage.
The blood-loss shakes me empty, cold.
This rigid, curled tight horror that you are.
My world turned inside-out.

April 2010

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Life Lines

I am drawn of lines, some deep, some faint and silvery
fine. They run criss-cross, through skin, through bone,
through heart and soul. And with their pedigree
a jumbled picture make.

Like veins they snake, up leg, round flaccid
thigh, and dimpled hip. A stomach worn
by stretch and shrink. A memory held
of forceful, tiny feet.

Inked into breast and under arm, tales told of
swollen milk-filled days. All shrunken now,
along with waist, too many pavements walked
and frequent dinners skipped.

Their furrows run in brow and mind. Ploughed deep by
thoughts, dug up, they pull my mouth and eyes.
Like paper, crinkled, crumpled up, or smooth
and tight. Washed clean by tears.

They tell a tale these lines of mine, of things both
past and yet to come. They feed new lines
to run in rivulets down fingers keen
and written out, right here.

February 2010

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Pink Ribbons
Written in response to the Haiti Earthquake and a newspaper story telling of the rescue of one little girl.

I was unborn into an under place.
Shaken from play and buried deep.
Around me candles quickly snuffed,
their brightness crushed. Now all is dark and still.

There is a monster hiding here,
growls with my stomach’s empty growl.
Its breath is hot upon my face,
filling this space with smells of dirt and death.

The ground still quakes and trembles in my shell
Tongue rasps on crackled lips to empty air.
I search and find a hand to hold,
unfriendly, cold, as sleep pulls me away.

I dream I hear my father’s voice above.
Shouts low and deep, my ceiling caving in.
Arms reach through mud and stone,
find my home. Eyes opening, all is white.

And now I am reborn, hauled up and out
Delivered to my mother’s waiting breast.
Eyes burning, dust hangs in the air,
catches my hair. Pink ribbons in the dawn.

January 2010