Category: Poetry

The lone lamenting of an owl kept me from my sleep – that and a silence foreign and exotic to my ear. I stood inside the open door by marsh and brush to gaze out on a nightscape free of any human sign. The far off fells were only rough charcoal sketches. Wind funnelled up […]

It was here before, just so –
the long straight avenue
parting luxurious chestnut trees
and families of deer browsing
up to the Burges church
festooned with gilded angels
and parrot-coloured windows.

The hushing of leaves 

in tune with the river’s rush, 

while crickets sound alarm clocks 

that nobody heeds, 

as all the world’s awake, 

chirruping, squabbling 

unseen from treetops.

Will you come too, I ask
Yes, she tells me, eyes gleaming
I can hear the distant breathing of the sea
and want to be nearer
We don’t know the way, but follow signs
from this maze of marble and painted tiles
out between the pines in waking birdsong

The florist lines up peonies and lilies as an audience of ladies watching Grafton Street in the rain A circus of fervid shoppers and trippers a plump beggar mumbles through gold teeth a busker charms jigs from a tired fiddle in a breeze of cigarettes and candy nuts Another shapes a dog from sand hands […]