Hope and Sky have disappeared

“Northern (Hen) Harrier” by Len Blumin from Mill Valley, California, United States – Northern Harrier. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. a poem written in London on Sept. 26th, 2014 Sky’s signal stopped September 10th. Three days later, Hope’s did too. Birds of their kind hunt small mammals. Birds of their kind are

That’s it

  The orange has been wrung of juice. The garlic’s lost its tang. The salad leaves have dropped their wings. The kitchen now has closed.   — I do like a good food-related poem. Sometimes it’s more or less simply about the food: Most versatile Salad with mackerel Or the words: Recipe Kitchen Alchemy On

And the earthworms cannot breathe

  I posted “Impatience” this time last year. It’s a poem about seeking goals. The first lines follow the hard work involved in aiming towards goals. The later lines move towards how things seem not to be working out. The Astro Turf suffocates the earthworms. Earlier this year I revisited the earthworm motif. In this poem I list

Collapse

Its last pulse was the echo of an interior draught. Some time ago the sluggish monopod had taken its leave. Beached on the concrete path the brown shell has no way of putting itself at safety. The unseeing crunch the barren passageways underfoot. — The above poem is about an abandoned snail shell like the

The Faint Smell of Jasmine

A short story from some time ago: It is a long climb up the stony mountain, through biting mists and pounding midday sun. From the crevices mountain flowers cheer the weary and tumbling water droplets happily refresh those travellers who whisper of their thirst. The higher the climb, the more the climber’s bones and muscles

On a meander

Let the line commence with a word other than I, the usual post to fence in paths that buoy and bob in hand-drawn bows and curving scythes: a writer’s promenade. — If I don’t write on lined-paper or have a guiding template sheet behind any blank page on which I write, my sentences will start

Such is clinging mind

There’s that thing, that topic that gnaws away in an alleyway of your mind. Perhaps it’s the last acrimonious discussion you had with a lover or the overdraft on your bank account, or maybe it’s a work project that didn’t unfold as planned or your child’s school report. “In an alleyway of thought” considers such matters that the clinging

A day too fine for words

Trump such sultry sunshine with a screen? That will not stem creation. The words set out for basting in the warmth; crossed the bridge at Embankment station. The Thames and sequins on its skirt, scintilled in summer brio. The words, now on the move, snacked on radishes a frio. — Thursday, 3rd July was such

look – really look

I will be 80 this year here in my flat only a mile and a half from where I was born. I have tried to lead by example, by plunging my narrow balcony into the principality of hanging gardens. Concrete is brutal. It needs softening. Plants should have dominion. We breakfast amidst the crisp verdure

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