Residue / Our Pride

I was toldthere were regrets,sadness over the thingsgone sour. Still to this dayit’s never been confirmedto my faceby you, the one concerned. I am determinedto maintainit will always bea little too late. As it is, your stupid goodbye gift –I’ve thrown it well away. — It might be pre-birthday angst, hormones or summer-fuelled heat, but

And

a poem to be paired with With And, another word – verboten in excess, the Creative Writing Rules would warn. And then another thing And, and, And, and. Dandy and, Like but, not to be ushered in at sentence starts. And so for years, and carefully was placed or erased. But now the rules are

Things you do with things

I am preparing this blog on the day of the autumn equinox 2021. At 7am-ish, the big, white moon was still in the sky already blue with morning light. I took a moment to log the scene in my poet’s files: the sun had risen in the East, on the far side of my loft,

Bump in the road

Normally reliable suffered a rare failure, taking over on the second day Before grinding to a halt. We’ve experienced an anomaly which made shutdown a precautionary measure. It brought a premature end. It’s crazy: The media and everything. When I was in high school, as part of an English literature exam we were given a

Gone are the cars

A short story, written in one sitting this afternoon (and I confess, not yet thoroughly proofed). This post is offered in the spirit of completion energy and is inspired by my current read, Jurgen Wolff’s “Your Creative Writing Masterclass” (Nicholas Brealey, 2012). The poem weaves together last night’s dream, some thoughts spurred by Earth Day and

Time tripped

The electricity tripped. Time fused at 05:17. I woke to the flashing. On my ‘phone 08:03. The day well underway and no new messages. I waiver over the buttons to recoup the extra hours. Inside this digital turn-back machine, once a bedside radio-clock, 05:17 is closer to that stolen other time. — This poem reminds

Knowledge

To feel waves must crash if they thirst for the shore; they must trip stones smooth, burst jagged hands, pierce the stretch strain of speckled beanskins learning the ground. The walker must trip. 2003, after Las Vegas, Death Valley and Flagstaff, USA — “Knowledge” appears in Shining in Brightness (2013), my first book of poetry.

It grows ever darker: autumn evenings

During the first months of posting on my blog in 2012, I opened this short piece with a reminiscence about the red creepers that draped my undergraduate university during autumn. I went on to comment on the dark evenings that enclose this season in the Northern hemisphere — I tweet much more when I’m in

Lettered objects finely wrought

I did not set out to write poetry. I intended to write Novels. And anyway, I am of the view that much superbly written and evocative poetry already exists. The Shadows of Giants loom large. At the moment I have no illusion about even coming close to their kneecaps, never mind shoulders. This time last year

we tried to love the symphony seldom played

From the archive, a poem about playing in an orchestra. If recollection serves me correctly, we may have been rehearsing a seldom performed Tchaikovsky symphony. My ongoing relationship with music has also inspired: And a – a poem with a boogie woogie beat Nightstar of Sirius – written during a jazz concert We stayed up late and