Guest Poems

Saint with Accoutrements after ‘Mrs Mounter at the Breakfast Table’ by Harold Gilman All spotless. Some objects we might deemespecially significant:the glistening tea pot, pristine cupslustrous milk bowl, the best surely.We inhale diverse aromas:odour of home-made...

Car Coat Through all the subtle chicanes of his existence in the 1960s,It was his constant companion –That car coat redolent of hairpin bends and handbrake turns,Bearing him along shopping parades and in and out of supermarkets,Evoking pine-clad mountains and Alpine...

Back to Nature i.m. J.S. You liked to sleep outat the edge of your gardenunder a scatter of starstucked into your bivouacon a bed of leavessoothed by a soft breezedrift over the South Downsthe smell of honeysuckleafter rain the rustleof hedgehogs in the compostto wake...

Horse A pool of shadowShapes the lonely placeWhere the old horse stands.He shakes his head. Remote fromCows, sheep, people,It seems farming proceedsAround, beyond him. His tufty fetlocks apeThe head-heavy cow parsley,Hair grass, oval sedgeUnheeded at the field’s edge....

On Stage Small spillages of lightare gathered on the woodland floor.Invisible strings tie themto the matrix of branches above. Sun, looking down through the canopy,has assembled them and standsas director, while a light breezetakes on the choreography. To their...

Warning Signs gracing sea and coastland: kittiwake    herring gull    puffingracing wetlands: curlew    whimbrel    lapwinggracing grassland: fieldfare    yellowhammer    skylarkgracing waterlands: goldeneye...

Half life It all depends which way you turn in the halflight, in the space between day and nightor between one year and another. It affects how much your eye adapts, and how darkor bright the sky you face, how soon or latefor you the night draws in. And when you walk...

A Solar Diversion The sun slants low. Rays point west,refracting from the roofs of oversizedparked cars on Manor Mount, forcing youto squint, walking down the slope towards the station. Preceded by long shadows,bouncing to the rhythm of their owner’s feet,you are...

Phantom Ancestor Hawker of Morwenstow Who wouldn’t claim a man like thisfor an ancestor? Poet, man of God,mermaid impersonator, who bore the nameof my maternal line, whose wiveswere twice his age then less than half,who saw birds as the thoughts of the Almightyand...

His Chair They’ve cleared the rooms,feeding the firewith what’s left of his life.Only the chair remainsin a miasma of old man,pipe smoke, Rich Tea crumbs. The cat by the footstoolwaits for the gnarled, caressing hand. Fragments of poetry floatfrom tattered chairside...

Swans At Night On the wildest night of the year’s beginning,the park’s a moor, the pond a heaving ocean.Like hailstones, stars soar past our heads;the trees are stripped by the shrieking gale. My eyes stream and my face feels stretchedand I worry about tomorrow....

Into this Breathing World Found in hallowed soil,his scoliotic spine strungloosely like a rosary(one shoulder higher than the other;five foot eight but would have seemedmuch shorter) he’d been struckby many men so eachcould claim the fatal blow. History has told of...

Carousel Set free – the horses leap out to grasspause – sit onto angular hocksstretch stiffness from limbs cramped too longthen snorting – high stepping they buck – run – droproll over and over – ease rigid spinesmask paint-bright colours in scuffles of dust. Heads...

Samos On the beach wherethe Syrians landedthen walked along the shoreto the police stationleaving their long boatand orange jackets behind, where the sea easesback and forthagainst the landas if trying tomake peace with it,I collected marble pebbles that the waves had...

The Table You made the coffee table long beforeI was on the scene, aged thirteen, a term’s work in the carpentry class, as yet the namesof your wife and children uncarved in your heart; young to master the music of your tools:bit and brace, mallet, plane, drill and...