[This poem was first published in the Autumn 2021 issue of The Cultivating Project] It was our birthright, Breathed upon a garden’s dappled glade, Sung forth from soil, soft-cupped in ageless hands, To be tended, and in our turn to tend, By day’s great light to till the budding land, Then walk as friends by …
Lord of all life, You knit this little one Within the secret place, Wove in my weary, waiting body Each fibre of her being, as Over nine long months, Two hearts within my frame Joined to beat as one. You supplied her every need through me By some strange alchemy of grace. And then …
Through undulating borderlands Beneath the shadow of the dyke, Borrowed water slowly slips Cradled soft in clodding clay; Past Tenbury Wells Ludlow, Leominster; Deep in benign backwaters, Recirculating sedimentary flow of Quiet, unhurried Teme. A seeping vein, sunk Low in storied earth, Snaking slow and sinuous, A rising sap to bless the Fruitful burdened boughs, Silent stands …
[This poem was first published in 2021 by The Cultivating Project] Suburbia burns silentlyWhite candles burst inChoreographed conflagrationGraceful limbs engulfed inFleeting crowns of pastel flameAblaze yet not consumed Sophisticated minds swear blindSuch subtle orchestrations are butSkittering showers of sparksAccidentals struck loose by theWild, chaotic wheels ofDogged chance But is it so? Are we determined byMechanical …
The year is on the ebb The pendulum is low All is in retreat A few last leaves hang Unloosed by snatching gales Limp as sodden leather Languishing lifelessly Allies of dead summer Flapping on the gibbet To set an example The once-emboldened sun Slides dreary through the motions Shuffling low in bleary skies …
[The more I wrestle with digital technology, and particularly the synergy between the smartphone and social media, the more concerned I become for my generation. For the most part it seems the endless capacity for online self expression has enslaved us rather than improving us. How do we learn to deal healthily with an ever …
[This poem was published in 2021 by Ekstasis Magazine] Icarus, Without the fated plunge, Is but a dreary grey-haired parable, Pragmatic unremarkable commute, Recklessness is crucial, The brazen rise to kiss Apollo, Weaves the gossamer of myth; In flushed freewheel of youth, Vital abandon strains, Frothing fervid at the bit, How easy to hold living light, …
[I keep coming back to Nietzsche’s aphorism about the madman, from where the famous “God is dead” phrase originates. I’m struck by how extraordinary clear-sighted Nietzsche was about all the societal changes that began racing down the tracks towards us once we lost our transcendent reference points. This poem is something of a meditation on …
Oh how we mocked! Cretins of a bygone age Who, in antique delirium Dreamt the mighty sun Might stoop to circle earth Yet, since Galileo raged Enlightened hubris Girds still greater fantasies The axis now transects the will The cosmos orbits every man
Autumn exhaled her last A breath of swallows Sighed upon the south Before cold rags stopped up her mouth And cannon cracks of frost Felled the stragglers The low slung sun Now barely grazes poplars on the hill Cold light pressed low in furrows Glances from the sodden soil Frost maps out long shadows Moored …