Scenes from the North
I We wrestle wind of Irish Sea Atop red raw sandstone, And gusts that wail like ghostly gales, A far, far cry from home. Grass purls, The fading coastline hurls Past tales, Crashing from mouths of caves. All of it now a memory, Washed out and veiled by waves. II In valleys hollowed by [&helli
Infestation
“Even now as the latest mealy-mouthed apology stumbles out of one side of his mouth, a new set of deflections and distortions pour from the other.” – Keir Starmer, April 2022 Flea sits beside Cockroach and fingers his ’tash, Discussing fiscal matters of raising cash. He’s scheming t
Eucharist
The profound blue of Mary’s shawl sweeps under the horizon just as the glass joins start looking like ant trails. Candles pretend to die, momentarily, as I stumble into the Psalm’s first verse. Then the songs are folded. The pastor reads “release them” from a book that says relieve th
God Pities the Nursery Children
A Translation of Yehudah Amichai’s ‘God Pities the Nursery Children’ [אלוהים מרחם על ילדי הגן ] from Hebrew. God pities the nursery children, He pities school children even less As for the גדולים [big ones], He will pity no more – He’ll let them fend for the
After Hogarth
Chalked up in white, his plans ran all in Cool blueprints: our house was just too staid. Then lines curved under my tools, sweetly Etched into edges that became snake-like. Right-angles baulked. We hooked fingers in Mingling Cs and recut hard doorframes Into shapes more sinuous. But then, Beh
Dandy
Mr Guillaume brought Paris to London His fingers anchored him to earth with their varicoloured jewels – He told me he once found a pearl shucking oysters And had it mounted on his littlest finger. When asked “how do you like your eggs?” he replied Fabergé. And his fizzing champagne chuckle ho
A Concert in the Ante-Inferno
[Inspired by Inferno, Canto III, where Dante and Virgil travel through the Ante-Inferno and cross the river Acheron with the help of the ferryman, Charon. The performer, called ‘Nick’, is loosely named after the singer Nick Cave, the frontman of the Australian Rock Band ‘Nick Cave and the Bad
The Stripping of the Altars
They from London came and armed with pages: scrolls proclaiming you a wolf in wool. Father, it seems you have misled us. We went picking fruit and ploughing, strapping boots to furrow sunrise after sunrise into penance. But you did nothing sacred with the tithe. All the sundry charms you hall