In preparation

In preparation           for life’s many little pageants We brush out our hair, cut the dry, split ends, straighten out the frizz. We lather up our legs and smooth out the bristle. We take concealer to those rings beneath our tired eyes and layer over the unhappy spots. We tint tiny

Exalted thus, we left

An old favourite revisited, because artists are allowed to have their obsessions. “Exalted thus, we left” is a reworking of a poem from 2011: I love the Dorothea Tanning painting that spurred the original “Jacob’s Dream for crinolined girls”. When I’m in Tate Modern, I’ll usually try to pop into the Surrealism gallery to gaze

Tumbling After – reprise

  This time last year I revisited a poem based on the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. This version was a shortened version of the ‘Tumbling After‘ I had written the previous December. Both versions veer towards the same scene: Jill watching Jack from afar and awaiting his delivery. Although not true to the nursery rhyme’s narrative,

The Old Cock and the Younger Hens

You’re all my favourite readers, but… I have a particularly ideal reader. She is well read and articulate and to her wise critique I have entrusted a few unpolished drafts. Her first response to this poem was a giggling, “Hehehe, you put ‘cock’ in the title.” Well, dear other favourite readers, the two of us