Poems

THE HUNGER

All that's left are the berry pickers

the foxes have gone - magpies have flown far from the storm;

we watched children throwing stones at drones

that hovered above council estates

waiting for that interlude = the lightness 

a symphony we can't hear. Stomach is brimming

tight muscles can't clench wilderness nor reached -

We draw this hunger in pencil across a sky in dark velvet

walk among dunes of concrete where fumes fill a green arena;

Our sanity disturbs this restless hunger as we devour colours & textures

seeking images that tempt our throats waiting for the interlude - the lightness - the break.  

Poem Taken From 'Woodworm' (Hedgehog Poetry Press) 

IN THE BELLY OF MASSACHUSETTS

Lungs - giant tanks of iron

skyline gathered in cement tracers

traffic lights hovered in metallic yellow huts

above freeways that swerve and breathe,

like obese concrete circles of eight.

The liver a swinging hinge

hanging from a waterfall where dead coats of seahorses

danced with dehydrated salmon skins.

Along sidewalks where veterans with no legs

jibe for dollar bits among shaking junkies

where cuts of beef as large as window frames

simmered on plates of plastic gold.

Poem taken from my chapbook 'One Million Tiny Cuts'

(Clare Song Birds Publishing House)

This poem was written in a Hotel room in Boston in 2017 

the night after I read for the first time in America 

for the Luminous Echoes Readings, held in Somerton, 

at the Armoury Arts Cafe, in Boston.

THE TOMB

Visiting the market every Tuesday morning

a grandmother dressed in dark tunic blue

spits on the base of a wartime monument.

craved in the black coal of the Motherland

a broken swastika at its feet,

Do we or anyone remember their crimes?

Silenced victims to the blood-lust of victors

Monsters that changed uniforms

with an uncomfortable smile.

We reference Vuchetich statue -

in quiet corners of dark coffee shops;

when we see every Tuesday morning

after visiting the market -

a grandmother dressed in dark tunic blue

spitting on the base of a wartime monument.

Poem taken from my chapbook/pamphlet The Kingdom ( Maytree Press )

A poem about a controversial statue in Berlin's Treptower Park.

This statue was among some of the locals renamed

"The Tomb of the Unknown Rapist", and do read if you have

the time about the diaries of Lieutenant Vladimir Gelfand,

who wrote with extraordinary frankness from 1941

to the end of the war.

WATCHING COBWEBS ON SKIRTING BOARDS ONE FRIDAY NIGHT

Down on the floor, another ten minutes to forget -

punch marks in plaster

covered by black & white pictures of infants,

watching cobwebs on skirting boards one Friday night.

Notice what needs to be cleansed,

using blusher to hide the wedding ring bruise,

never remembering the kitchen battle marks

where hurt is hidden from pride

reassembling a trembling beat in the heart.

Bites that tattooed the arm; like lipstick traces

bubbling under hard skin -

when morning reveals the aftermath,

denial is the response from the rage she caused

and brings to him every Friday Night.

Poem taken from my chapbook/pamphlet 'A Season in Another World'

(Thirty West Publishing House)

I wanted to write a poem about domestic abuse as all the previous poems I've read or heard have always been from one perspective, but never have I heard a poem from a man's perspective. When I've read this poem at events people always think that the man is the abuser but not in the case of this poem, he is the victim, and the woman is the abuser. The % of men being abused by their partners has been drastically on the rise for several years.

THE YEAR WE WATCHED THE BERLIN WALL TOPPLE

Stepping over outline of sleeping baby skinheads

scattered under railway lines

glue sniffed on cycle tracks;

In quarries that run a green long neck

over bent rugby posts signed

with velvet arrows & love hearts.

In an age of Chernobyl & Thatcher

where girls grew fists and boys wore make-up;

in a time when Pinochet murdered Neruda

we all watched the Berlin wall topple

on the BBC in full technicolour -

slept in bright wallpapered luminous rooms

where our youth had felt like a diary written

on strong prescription & hallucinating drugs -

now we watch time and the crow lines on a broken face

on screens as large as hallway mirrors. 

Poem taken from my third full length collection 

'Lemminkainen - A New Beginning (A Work in Progress)  

LAUGHARNE

I woke in the birth of darkest morning

sound of a pony's hooves scraping against granite

following the forest to a road of open borders

guarded by rooks that thread the castle remains

I walk on the shill of black air

sills of light like children jumping for a higher shelf,

peaking bright pockets of sun

crowning the morning with the crispy repeats of dew.

Reaching an ivy smouldered cabin

window smeared with an amber moss;

a writing desk levelled to a vista of trickling water

pen cushioned in age and inkling ash.

A morning in black hoods of cloud

where a moon lights up a castle like a cathedral 

I saw discarded fishing wrecks sleeping in dribbles

simmered by a slow tide of blue and wide sparks. 

Poem taken from my first full length collection 

DYSTOPIA 38.10 (winner of the erbacce prize) (2015)

the poem was written after staying in Laugharne 

for a long weekend and will be included in 'DEAR DYLAN' ANTHOLOGY (INDIGO DREAMS)