A scholar and a gentleman once led a boy to an iron-clad shore past cavernous domes of smoke and fire where steam-wreathed beasts snorted and hissed, into a wind-whipped hall where for threepence a bag fresh-roasted chestnuts could be had from the toothless man with the leather-skinned smile. Proudly showing tickets to the peak-capped …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Exodus
The heat is building. All gather on the perilous trek to where they can quench their thirst for life.
Saturn
In the freezing regions far beyond the Sun lies a gas giant with internal heat to fire the imagination, an endless atmosphere that harbours hidden worlds but speaks of gods, an exotic meteorology of violent storms and cataclysms where clouds of soot compress into showers of liquid diamond never to be grasped by mortals. Ice …
Unentitled
She didn’t know why she did it- couldn’t explain, not even to herself. Something extreme, a dark miasma was keeping her trapped inside her mind, inside her skin. Maybe the cuts would permit her flesh to breathe. Maybe their sharpness would let in the light and she would be free.
Nina
Nina calls me Grandad because that is who I am – doesn’t believe I have a name Like James or Dave or Sam.. She likes it when I tickle her, she likes it when I’m daft- silly faces, funny games are all part of the craft of keeping Nina happy each and every day with …
End Notes
I would stand by her Between the cooker and the sink And watch her hands Her work- worn fingers dancing Over the yellowing keys Producing out of thin air Melodies known and unknown Pouring from the tensioned wires Into my being Not wanting them to end Like discovering a new dimension. My anxieties fall away …
The Legend of Barbecue Bill
(acknowledgement to Lennon and McCartney’s ‘Bungalow Bill’) Bill gets out his barbecue least three times a week. Summer’s here and the wasps we fear are emerging as we speak. in apron-flapping frenzy he looks some kind of freak. Hey, Barbecue Bill, what do you grill Barbecue Bill? He lights the charcoal easily and turns the …
Tea Time
I really love my cup of tea made freshly in a pot I take it with a splash of milk and like it really hot. I’m desperate to have a cup when I’ve just been out that welcoming gentle gurgle pouring richly from the spout. I watch the rich brown colours swirl and mingle in …
Survivors
Old survivors – forgotten scraps of nature shivering like withered hags arm in arm with nowhere to go heads bent to an icy blast howling through the sockets of sightless faces Huddled against a brutal surge that has reduced all hopes to wasteland, waiting for an end.
Winter Tree
My brittle world – a winter tree cold and grey on a heaving sky, colourless eyes fixed inwardly on her. Frozen branches twisted, agonised, longing too much for her warmth. But winter has sealed a casket round my heart. I melt a hole in my frosted window to peer at the world I, prisoner of distance, …
Lea’s poetry 