Poems

These, below, are my poems, to date. They were mostly written in the ‘covid years’ – i.e. 2020-2022 – and many are very obviously flavoured by those strange times. I think they vary a lot in quality, but I haven’t weeded out the worst. If nothing more, they are snapshots of one person’s attempts to discover and express the essence of poetry.

You’ll find each poem comes with two ‘extras’. First, there is an audio version for each one. (Just me, doing my best.) This may make the poems more accessible. They also underline my belief that poetry needs to be read out loud, not only seen on the page. It is only through hearing poetry that we can discover the song of it. Second, there are some notes on the technical aspects of the poem, for anyone who’s interested.

Summer’s End

The east wind, shrouded in a cloak of sighs, curls through the village alleys, along the harbourside . . .
Cynara’s substitute

Though he has tasted fallen fruit and knows it’s sweet, Here lain, the blemishes are all that he can see.
It’s a comfort to watch my garden grow

On the West Coast, I hear, the forests glow.
Stairrods

I pause at the window to watch the rain falling loudly, alarmingly, as if a small monsoon had lost its way.
Little waves

They are, I think, the last touches I shall know of an ocean that has drawn its tide away from me.
Passing storms

If only, she said, I had kissed him one second longer, or for one second less.
The Painter

There’s more in sea than land, she says, and yet still more in clouded skies.
Rage

The only right response to the paradox of life . . .
The boat

I held my boat against the flow Because I thought I saw an ethereal place above the riverbank
For Coco

Siren of the internet, she stretches on a WordPress rock .
Song for 2020

In the shops and public spaces the people all walk with your sign on their faces . . .
Self-abuse

I’ve squeezed the lemon – tart fruit that I inherited, And keynote of the life that I have led.
Damn the poets

. . . here is the crop of all my loves, the harvest of my life, the fruit of all my fear.
Falling trees

A reflection on old age
Sex talk

Sex and words; and sexual words.
Excretions of the heart

One day, when I am recently no more . . .
For Sophie

A message to a former lover.
When do we die?

Does it come in the still of a room in a home?