Guest Poems

The Dead They buried him in a shoeboxamongst the terraced stones,packed in tight as teeth. God help the hand that puts me there.Don’t sandblast my nameon a bookmarked bible slab.Don’t trap me in an eight by six,gawked at by the passing busas next door’s dog lifts its...

Cheddar Gorge I walked up the road from Anne’s hotel,climbing onto limestone heights,kaleidoscope inside my head. I can’t … I can’t … it’s impossible … I thought the cliffs an awesome sight,below the bushes dropping steep,suffused in eerie golden light. I can’t … I...

Talking to Thrushes for Andy, of Maggie’s Centre Instead of you, I’ll talk to the thrush.As I can’t book an appointment,I’ll talk to a sparrow too – one that calls from the hawthorn.Or the nervous starlingon the green steel bridge. When birds are hidden, I’ll talkto...

bells bearded men under straw hats at springgaudying the playground with ribbonsthat sprout from a maypole you’d go in groups round the canopybut recall the other times when snakes would descendthrough a nightmare in the airround your side of the bed till you’d find...

Loss My loss comes wrapped up in phrases:… no more funding… have to let you go. Yours has no such delicate packaging:the click and boom of gunshotsthat violate the rushing street,the angry blade that rips through flesh. I add the experience to my CV,gain advantage...

The Deliverance of St Peter David Teniers the younger, c.1645 On one side of the massive door,which stands unaccountably open,the guards, so steeped in reality it hurts,are playing dice, that means of transport fromreality into some other sphere of things,where it’s...

On not Being the Last Bird to Sing my child’s face, stretchedin pain like a Noh mask, relaxesand she sleeps at last,leaving the land around usto lie awake under a crust of starsthat mists the sky with light likethe illuminated face of a watch.On the hillside, a hare...

Let’s Do Cartwheels and watch the great world spin.Everyone will be on the green againplaying football or tip the can.Parents will pop out every now and thento check we’re still alive and then some.All the flowerbeds will be shakingwith laughter, ickle secrets...

Daffodil Bulbs I could stare at these tubs of dirt all day,waiting for the miracle. This is where I buried them,swaddled in their papery skins now wintering in a secret hideawaylike swollen nodes of sleep. I envy their dark cocoons of privacy. One more change of...

The Sides of an Obelisk Three thousand five hundred are the yearsI’ve travelled, past all my known forebearspast several kings named Henry outbreaks of the plague there, and thereto be pinpointed along time’s gradientwhere creatures are shaped into language and...

A Flash I described the painted saints,carved animal heads on pewsin a medieval church.I'm going through hell, you said, and questioned whether loss of hearingwas worse than losing sight. You knew a womanblind and deaf who'd learned to speak:with balloons in her...

Two Worlds Season of Christmas cheer we adore thee,We adore thee and greet theeAnd men sleep outside in the streets.We greet thee with carols and cardsAnd prepare lavish fare,And men sleep outside in the openWith feet that are bare,With feet that are crippledAnd hands...

On the Morning of Christmas Day it’s mildacross our ungrazed fieldwhose thorns and clay have yet to know a freeze.The clouds in the east proclaimhow every wise man’s dreamof frost fair, snow and angel, is old news.Nature, abandoned at the Pole,feels something cracking...

Nativity Scene Besançon Book of Hours (15th Century) The saddled donkey seems to be eatingJoseph’s cake-like halo or at least testingwith mouth and nostrilswhether it might be edible. In his carpenter’s hands,bald and bearded Joseph is holding the babywrapped in...

The New Estate Uninterrupted, our view towards the dawn,beyond silhouetted horses near the hedge.Soon, across the lightening sky, first birds flew –in this pleasant way each breaking day was set. But builders bought the land, they lifted hedgerows,trampling wild...