February 4, 2020
Autumn tossed in winter
opening the door
to let the dog out.
cold creeping inward
like a clammy hand
and bedclothes. last night
the first frost
fell like petals - I drove to work
looking at pictures of leaves.
all gone now.
then the daylight thaw
like autumn tossed int...
August 12, 2019
Like Heraclitus, the elderly clerk ran naked in the hills. He scrambled over boulders,
climbed up cliffs and through clefts, and knelt at the edge of a scarp. His eyes followed a hawk's
circling ascent into hot haze, and then its long drift down to the...
May 1, 2019
No matter how early you arrive at an airport, your time there always seems spent in a hazy blur. You walk, or jog, alongside people you'll never see again. You sit beside and talk amongst others and never exchange names. It is the land of the temporary. There's a feeli...
April 5, 2019
‘I’ve got to give it to you, ma’am, these scones, they really melt in the mouth.’
‘It was my grandma’s recipe. Lucy and I baked them together when she was young. We were so close before she became a teenager.’
‘Good old hormones, eh? They’ve a lot to answer for.’
‘I thin...
April 1, 2019
Breakfast Blown from Canada
Another egg cracked, another
omelet browning, flipped in a pan.
The north wind this morning tastes
of breakfast blown from Canada.
We agree that cast-iron pans
cough up the finest omelets.
We agree to welcome the snowstorm
with smiles concealing...
March 24, 2019
River Waltz
The river stayed happy
when the others were
splattered with the blood
of a face splayed out on an Oxford street.
The river heard the words
that would later make readers gasp,
but didn’t let on that it knew
or that it wouldn’t warn us.
The river brought confidan...
February 24, 2019
“trainers” is british english for “sneakers”
I took some of my dad’s trainers
The last time I saw him.
He is not yet dead
He can still walk
But he cannot run
He can only really shuffle.
He doesn’t need trainers
And though I sometimes say
I don’t need him
I do enjoy
Thinkin...
February 9, 2019
Muted
They sat on a bench that was spotted with bird shit. They didn’t mind. Her legs were crossed at the ankles and his were spread apart at forty-five degrees, so that in reality their share of the bench was a sixty-forty affair. She didn’t mind. He ate his sandwich,...
February 7, 2019
Catenation
Your eyes peep into chapters of my
opuscule with incessant questioning.
I enjoy the interrogation. Someone
is interested, I tell myself. Evading
the uncomfortable fits into form for
inveterate personages. It hasn’t been
a noisy commute. I choose quiet corners...
December 11, 2018
