young bird picks his way through reeds in the shallows of the river parent birds no longer haunt this stretch of water except in dreams and spirit movements finding his way through this special setting now with no thoughts for his parents in a glorious moment he catches a silvered stickleback in his beak before … Read more
… from the latest poetry sequence (still unfinished) called ‘Scrapes against the Soul’ The conversations the night sea has with the dawn Leave an empty hissing through the sea weed, as if Everything had left the world in solitude… And my heartbeat can be heard beneath the lap of waves Quickened by the memory of … Read more
… from my latest collection of poetry, called ‘Scrapes against the Soul’: Sonnet Now you know why I spent my twenties crying, Aching for some meaning beyond empty Atheist life of wonder, wandering, A lost corn-circle waking, open third eye When I close my eyes I can still see through Where I see the spiritual … Read more
“If we can’t find Heaven, there are always blue jays” He said, as he opened the car door and walked off into the night. I looked at his shadow shortening to the street corner And wondered how I had been so gullible, to listen to this. I was sitting there now, nothing left. No hope. … Read more
[from a new poetry sequence which I am developing] I watched the little specs of dust as they floatedIn shafts of light through the churchA voice was working its way through a sermonBut my mind was engaged in this little worldWhere the dust bits fall then spin and whirlSome micro universe where I can imagineA … Read more
I thought it would be useful to set out some of the ideas and techniques I use to produce new poems. When the creative muse is off on holiday, I sometimes draw inspiration from old poems. I am also really interested in techniques from popular music, particularly approaches like remixing, remastering and cut-ups. These ideas … Read more
A quote from e e cummings: “One’s not half of two, it’s two that are halves of one” Wow. I found that in a book I have just begun to read called ‘Man’s journey to Simple Abundance’ edited by Sarah Ban Breathnach.
After a long poetic silence, words are beginning to appear in my head again. Some new poetry fragments – towards a 2007 sequence… (1) The sound of the helicopter blades reminded me thatThe first time I had stood on this rocky outcrop I hadWondered what I was doing nextThen the pieces of the jigsaw all … Read more
When at school, nowhere else but the space that was givenAnd those tighter moments, when the neurosis of the timeMade no more sense than the 70s were supposed to… Three lines, two times, and once we had becomeThe glide of a hawk, the times when we capturedAll the dreams that had been spinning around outside … Read more
you see, when I was young and writing for all I could findI read somewhere that it was wrong to use too many wordsthat end in –ing, so avoided it, wanting to get it right how stupid though, how the rules that we get are really allthere to be ignored, to be recreated. When word … Read more