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.

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

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

On this beach, I wish to see the end of time

I often write to capture moments that I have experienced in solitude. Consider for example the afternoon that produced this poem, “On a rock amongst rocks“. I had walked out beyond the beach of white sand to the rocky inlet beyond the seafront houses, the fishermen and the dog owners. Each day I used this landmark as the half-way point measure

In the ocean one night

I try to revive a blue whale with raw eggs from plastic bowls in different colours laid out in a wooden fishing boat. To do this you must put two or three eggs together in each bowl, watch their yolks lilt to the tide, then pour them through the whale’s sieve-like mouth. — This poem