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Combustion

Poetry

Long Poems and Series

Poetry

The Chemical Marriage

Poetry

Finchley Boy

Poetry

Becoming Mortal

Poetry

The Likeness is Applied to the Canvas

Poetry

The London Plane

Poetry

A Comedy of Misdirection

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SAMPLE POEMS

Memorial

His trail a path that only he walked on.

We cannot trace the slope of that journey.

And when, at last, this traveller had gone

what maps there were, consigned to history.


The more you search for clues, the more you know.

This is not so. Ignore the things you hear.

An echo does not sharpen as it goes,

and each retelling smudges with the years.


And do not say you thought that he was brave.

Who knows what fears he had or hid inside?

Or that he holds his secrets in the grave.

We guess at what he did, the lusts denied.


So when you speak of him make sure to say

we could not grade the dust that was his stuff

but once, he was like us and walked our way.

He lived and died and that is good enough.


From The London Plane

Fisherman at Prayer

How did that sullen countenance begin?

Blasted from rock and dragged across the hills

then shaped into a face, cracks mortared in

with clay and moss, to keep the muscles still?

 

His uniform a frayed, rope-knotted weave.

A statement made though not a word was said.

Unpacks his kit, this shepherd of the sea,

descends stone steps his father used to tread.

 

Instinctively looks up to test the sky.

A storm mislaid: the rain did not appear

He kneels to touch the swell, the friends who died,

an age which disappeared but holds him here.

 

From The London Plane

Bull Dog and Owner in Motion

 

Does not rest on earth.

Rather, four paws placed precisely down

as if a ballet.

Claws, en pointe, pin the ground

 

ready to pounce.

Bluster and short-stock barrel.

Fur-lined enforcer

fully armed, snarling animal

 

mirror of the man

shaven head, jabbing finger,

shouting his skewed point of view.

And in anger

 

they bob together

in an age-old dance

of aggressive posturing

and barely curbed violence.

 

From Combustion

Rembrandt

 

Saskia is dead, and in her passing

the fragility of life is laid bare.

Endured again, the rigour of mourning,

the disappointments, misfortunes, we share.

 

No mirror so harsh as that held by death

in which few dare look; still fewer study.

With what artist’s eye did you scour its depth?

What reflection seek? What image copy?

 

Though pain and sorrow may mature the brush,

add shade and substance to its armoury,

to trade love, contentment, for genius

who would fix that price or pay willingly?

 

From The Likeness is Applied to the Canvas