Poems inspired by sea creatures

This poem about scales is a mash-up of ideas about old flames and red herrings. Strangely, yesterday I also wrote about sea creatures. In ‘New ink cartridges‘ I paired cephalopods with writing in black ink. — The image of fish scales is courtesy of Wikicommons Media and photographed by Rajesh danji. View the original image here. You can

Ignoring the pearl

Last year I wrote this diffuse poem. The setting is the large ice-mass that perhaps once bridged Siberia with North of America. A couple are migrating across this inhospitable realm. Imagine the pair dressed in furs, with all their worldly possessions in tow – tent, working dogs, blankets, food and household items tied to sleds.

104 Poems

The 2×52 project developed in April 2013 when I committed to posting two poems a week for a year. I completed my self-made creative challenge this April when I revealed the 104th poem. Next month (June 2014), all the poems will be available in a book at my Blurb bookstore. In the meantime, here are the 104=2×52 poems listed in all their glory! And for your convenience, so

Different Rides

You saw me in spiked heels and felt up the leather skirt leaning over your polished bonnet in the pulsing minutes before the drag race took off. On my calendar we took drives on Sunday afternoons to shaded woodland spots. There we sat on a blanket and picnicked. — Two poems to go until I

Absorbed

Evening issues an amber skein. It trails a flock in departure. In tumblers, it reflects as liquid. From the road into one’s ear, whorls the skein. When Friday dusk descends, often you will hear sirens. — “Lots of sirens. People have been drinking,” noted a friend of mine one balmy summer’s afternoon in sleepy North

Kindly exit

at the door or retire through the window. That will suffice. Better yet, via my ears make your retreat as swiftly and in neat compactness as a ready ball of orange wax or next time I spit, roll out over my tongue. Or next when through my eyeball I aim a withering look, consider that

Appropriate Recompense

I want an ugly pink carnation with all those serrated petals overlapping. The flower must be slightly droopy and the stem a little slimy from waiting in a bucket at the corner convenience store for those awkward evenings after a morning fight when you know, if you don’t bring home a carnation as ungraceful as

In this place

A post-breakup mediation posted this time last year, but dating back further in time. The poem appears in my book Emily’s Poems for Modern Boys under the title “A quiet thought”.

Near Liverpool Street under scaffolding

What do you believe? I believe to see truth lived quietly and consistently is powerful. My father died like that. In trees we find tall truths deeper rooted than human folly. I believe in stakes that make us choose a path right, or left or denial. Denial comes back to haunt us in choice, again.

The old cock and the younger hens

  Because you now see I will not sleep with you you’re bored and have a new pet whose projects so much interest you. I see it en peripherie this nimble show: it entertains. She’ll also move along, you know.   2012 — Another poem, written during 2012, that will be included in the set