Thoughts from an early morning train

 

 

Strange how certain things – whilst falling apart –

take on shapes that almost seem deliberate,

as though planned that way, as though this

were merely a truer angle to see them from.

A reassembly of ideas. A reversal of mirrors.

So you become the terrified hare cowering in

the tractor wheel ruts as the carriage spears by,

not the owner of the jaded eyes witnessing it.

You always have been. You see holes now

where once there were pegs, an illusion of

opportunity created by yourself, by your own

shadow sweeping across the picture as you pass.

 

first published in Across The Margin, 2017

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Hinterland

Hinterland

 

They say it doesn’t rain here much, often, but

when it does, canopies of merciless cloud snuff out

 

every last square of the sky, hanging about the fields

like a quarrel, forgotten without ever being resolved,

 

and empty themselves in angled swipes that paste

both barley and nettles to the red earth, bleeding into

 

the leather boots and loafers of commuters on trains,

who steam coolly in their seats all the way into Waverley.

 

 

first published in Southlight Magazine, 2017

Clear Poetry Anthology 2017

A fine way to end the year would be reading through this year’s Clear Poetry Anthology, put together by CP editor Ben Banyard. It’s a bittersweet feeling this year, mind you, because although one of my poems is included for the second year running (Clapham Junction, which can be found on page 13), it comes with the knowledge that Ben has decided to call time on Clear Poetry.

Total respect, Ben, for all the hard work you’ve put in running such a great online venue for both aspiring and established poets. And best wishes with furthering your own poetry endeavours.

 

The third and final Clear Poetry Anthology is now available to download and read, free of charge.

via Clear Poetry Anthology 2017 — Clear Poetry

Three poems at Across The Margin

I’m delighted to have had three of my poems published in the online magazine, Across The Margin. You can read “Thoughts from an early morning train”, “Afternoon, hillside above town” and “Bookmarked” by clicking here.

I’m really grateful to ATM’s poetry editor, Richard Roundy, for choosing my poems.

Leningrad, 1990

Leningrad, 1990

 
Even with only seven mutually-intelligible phrases,

we partied on the overnight express north like it was

everybody’s birthday, making a loaf out of crumbs.

Come morning, the train lurched in, to a metropolis with

two heads, neither of them facing in the right direction.

 

Then it rained three days, in bands of withering judgment,

from a sky heavy with itself and a marathon of history.

Ageing boulevards, redundant with missing teeth, became

tributaries. Palaces gleamed, and naked-headed citizens

in zip-up jackets, streamed along Nevsky Prospect wearing

 

identical tennis shoes, unaware that another revolution

was rearing like a rodeo bull, in a future already

out of touch with the present. They would soon be

renaming the city again. Back at our hotel, the lights

flickered. They warned us against drinking the water.

 

 

first published in Clear Poetry, 2017