I’m delighted to have had my poem “Forty-eight hours” included in issue 26 of Allegro Poetry Magazine, and my thanks go to editor Sally Long for picking this one out.
You can read the whole of the issue (it’s a cracker) by going here.
Second poem appearing today at Vita Brevis
The second of my two poems published by Vita Brevis has gone live today – you can check out “Downland” here.
Once again, my gratitude to editor Brian Geiger for giving a home to my writing, and to you for reading.
Poem up today at Vita Brevis
I’m very pleased to have two landscape-inspired poems lined up for publication at the online poetry magazine Vita Brevis. The first of these – “Black Hill” is appearing today, and can be found here. The second – “Downland” – will go live on January 31st.
My thanks to the editor of VB, Brian Geiger, for accepting these.
Poem appearing in The Cabinet of Heed
A cold, grey, Lockdown Sunday has been brightened up for me by having my poem “Superman writes down his dreams” published in issue forty-two of The Cabinet of Heed. You can check out my take on the contents of Clark Kent’s subconscious ramblings by following this link.
Big thanks to Simon Webster, Chief Polisher of The Cabinet for taking this one.
Hope you’re keeping well.
Towards the end of our knowing one another
Towards the end of our knowing one another
that infamous whisky-hour conversation ceased
its looping flight and fell from out of the clouds,
becoming more a string of painful retreats
from the same old mountain, with no guide
to navigate a way between the boulders,
the only choice to keep on going down.
But then I remember you telling me how
you always really preferred the plateau,
the big-sky possibility of the high moors
or the wide-open silence of the desert,
with the comfort of its horizons. How it
bathed you in a bottomless pool of space.
Where did it all disappear to? The quiet
sine-wave of your voice circling my ear?
Sharing your untold versions of the darkness,
pointing them with the tired light of our stars?
first published in Cacti Fur, 2020
“First Overseas Christmas” up at Dodging The Rain
My poem “First Overseas Christmas” is appearing today over at Dodging The Rain, as part of the 12 Poems of Christmas series. It’s an honour to find one of my poems in amongst so many high quality pieces, and I’m very grateful to the crew at DTR.
Hope you’re enjoying the holidays.
Holly
Best wishes for the festive season.
Holly
All this time cowed in shadows,
stunted and contained, or else
straggling desperately through gaps,
her thick-set leaves have become
as dark as the longest night, and
glossed well beyond necessity.
Each has grown a ready fist of teeth,
defending her hard, blood-blister fruits.
first published in Northampton Poetry Review, 2018
12 Poems of Christmas at “Dodging The Rain”
I’m really honoured to have had one of my poems selected by Dodging The Rain for their annual “Dodging The Snow – 12 Poems of Christmas” feature.
The series kicks off tomorrow and runs until New Year’s Day. My poem – “First Overseas Christmas” – is up on December 29th (and not just before Christmas, as I posted here recently – my error!). Very, very grateful to Neil Slevin and the rest of the team at DTR.
Seasons greetings to you all.
Holocene
Holocene
The shoreline has no recollection of the ice;
only the genetic memory of suffocation, smothering,
of cold, silent fingers playing at the clay of the Earth,
sundering rocks. There are only echoes, hearsay,
the whisper of older waters – receded, replenished –
forests, hills, a whole continent swallowed below.
Becoming a pixel in the image, a word of the story,
I press footmarks through a knotted dunescape
to arrive, human, upon it, eyes finally registering
only in the present tense, shouldering my own tide.
first published in Amethyst Review, 2020
Poem accepted at The Cabinet of Heed
Chuffed to report that my poem “Superman writes down his dreams” has been accepted for publication by the fabulous thing that is The Cabinet of Heed, and will be appearing therein come January.
My gratitude to Simon Webster, Chief Polisher of said Cabinet, for this particular vote of confidence.
