I’m very grateful to the editorial team at Backchannels – Mary Elizabeth Bardsley, Leslie Caton and Laura Johnson – for slotting my poem “Adieu” into their Fall 2020 edition, amongst lots of great writing.
You can dive right in here.
Oxalis corniculata var. atropurpurea
Oxalis corniculata var. atropurpurea
Trying to put a solid name to every colour
you think you can see in those posies
of three-hearted leaves, you scribble down
a recipe calling for Verdigris, a spool of
old-style camera film, liver (both cooked
and uncooked), the persistent stain left
by berries on your fingers in late summer.
And all the while they are taking over
your world, starting – naturally – at the
front doorstep before flouncing off at
right angles towards the alley, the off-white
cones of their roots somehow deriving
sustenance from its mortar, slowly working
loose the mass of its hundred year stone.
first published in Envoi, 2018
Two poems in the Winter issue of Rat’s Ass Review
It’s a fine thing to have poems appearing in the fabulous Rat’s Ass Review again. Back in 2016, two pieces of mine – “Why we are not birds yet” and “Son” – were included in the Fall-Winter issue, whilst “All breakages must be paid for” popped up in the homage to love and lust and relationships that is Love and ensuing madness.
So my thanks go out once again to RAR editor Roderick Bates for giving a home to “Tidying your garden ahead of the wake” and “Listening to A Day in the Life for the first time”. You can check out the amazing Winter 2020 issue here.
Happy reading!
Lighthouse Literary Journal, issue 21
It was a real buzz to have my poem “Father” included in the most recent issue of Lighthouse Literary Journal, which was launched via an online event on Friday last.
The theme of this issue is The Body, and you can order a copy here. I’m incredibly grateful to Julia Webb, Anna De Vaul and everyone else at Gatehouse Press for taking this poem.
Poem posted today at “Bluepepper”
I’m very grateful to the editor of Bluepepper, Justin Lowe, for publishing my poem “In order to think”.
You can read the poem – and check out lots of other stuff – by going here.
Poem posted today at “Bluepepper”
I’m very grateful to the editor of Bluepepper, Justin Lowe, for publishing my poem “In order to think”.
You can read the poem – and check out lots of other stuff – by going here.
Poem up today at Bookends Review
I’m really pleased to see my poem “Over-thinking for beginners” featuring today over at Bookends Review. You can find it by going here.
My thanks go out to editor Jordan Blum for picking this one.
Hope all is well with you.
Lobster tail
Lobster tail
Uncommon to find such a thing up here,
beyond the exhausted seaweed,
vacated mussel shells and limp
trawlermen’s gloves in bleached out
blue or yellow rubber, their fingers
often present if somewhat perished;
but there it was, cradled among the
whirled nests of exhausted marram
woven untidily through a scalp
of sutured pebbles. Time had melted
flesh away, revealing the miracle
of its engineering, in segments
and articulations, a suit of armour
still functioning in our snow-bitten,
astonished fingers, as we prowled
the empty shore, pleased to find
such a simple gift, today of all days.
first published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, 2018
Two poems in “Night Music Journal”
Its very fine indeed to have two of my poems – “Aftermaths” and “Upon waking” – appearing in Volume 7 of Night Music Journal. You can find this latest volume here.
I’m very grateful to NMJ editor J Worthen for taking these.
Poem up at “Clementine Unbound”
I’m well pleased that one of my poems – “We bury our fathers” – is making an appearance just now at the online poetry journal Clementine Unbound.
My thanks go out to editor G.F. Boyer for giving this poem a home.
