On the secret beach

When we’re not thereOr if we arethe wavesdraw up resolve To putter out on shore. Great energy, momentumDissolves in frothy white.The rest draws backto charge on blue To roll a course infinite. — After two years of serious COVID-anxiety, I flew to Mauritius. In the two weeks there I planned to write, read and exercise.

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.

Ulterior motives

It was very suspicious the way that whale rolled over and opened its mouth for tips, then set fireworks to the water gods from its blowhole. — Whales have featured in my poetry before. Like sluice gates and bears, whales prefigure as a childhood fascination. In my first or second year of school, we learnt

The call home

The tides of tomorrow and tomorrow and the next tomorrow sweep into crevices of shored shells. The waves nudge these hollows of yesterday’s habitat into the barrels of tomorrow, tomorrow and the next tomorrow. There the shored shells break with tomorrow, tomorrow and another tomorrow dashed to granules that lip the tideline. Salted foam seeps

the rains trigger migration of hartebeests in cravats

“To the Valleys” describes the return of hard-working hartebeests who hope to woo brides back in their home village. I wrote this poem last year after “I do. Do you?” another imagined narrative about a wedding that did not come to pass. — Twitter: @BeadedQuill Facebook: BeadedQuill Books available through BeadedQuill’s Blurb Bookshop

Time and tide

“Seashell unknown 3” by Wilfredor – Own work. Licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons. Time and tide, a mermaid’s song The tides go out. Can you hear me? The waves roll back – Did you know? – with the shells discarded that morning: reclaimed nonpareils for below. — Mermaids and singing maidens have featured before in

Tall ship

Tall ship Ready your largest sail. Today promises high winds! The snow blew in. The black waves froze darting shoals. We’ve come to the end of our time. — I’m in the mood for sailing seas. The forthcoming Tall Ships Festival at Greenwich strikes part of me as something interesting. Today it’s been a drizzly bank

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

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

New ink cartridges

From one side of the pool to the other, pacific waves cursive; held by rocks hard-backed in blue. A visiting squid squirts ink fresh and black. A pseudomorph arrows from the nib. 26/06/2014 — For Christmas ‘Secret Santa’ gave me a dinky, frosted pink fountain pen. It’s small; probably about 8cm in length. Its micro-cartridges