Dusk Poem – And the Humming Ebbs

dusk poem

And the Humming Ebbs is a dusk poem, a painting of a city’s evening and people passing through places and days.

And the humming ebbs – dusk poem

Dusk, and the humming ebbs
People homing, Sparrows heading
Offshore. At the bar, after-work pints
In the beer garden. On the veranda,
He rocks her chair, she reads a line from
An old book she’s read a thousand dawns
When the chirping and the rev of the first bus
Broke light sleep and the dew sweetened
The scent of the grass. A boy and a girl play
Hopscotch, Traffic and an old man can’t
Cross the road. A seagull roves down Shop Street
And lodges fronting the Treasure Chest
Swagger on her webbed rubbery feet. They dull
The colour of the paving stones. On her beak,
The red dot, the knob her chicks peck
When they are limp. But that was many dusks ago
And wingspans across a bunch of oceans. But
Distance is nothing, and still one hand in another
More golden than gold itself. Inside the glass
Teapot, the Chinese flower blossoms on a canvass of
water on the boil, talk and no talk.

Bravery Poem – Delicate

Bravery poem - Delicate

Delicate is a bravery poem, a celebration of anyone who dares step up and out no matter how terrifying it may seem to us all.

Delicate – a Bravery Poem

When my plastic skin melted into a puddle…if only I had skimmed the barks of trees and felt that texture is matter and matters to the birds and the bees who will not cling onto slippery slopes. I was used to slathering oil on my face plumbing the arid valley around the wings of my nose, I plumped and smoothened my future double-chin, I lifted and tucked the dark rims, I concealed the buds of branches and my foundation was above all, cover-all clown faces, pants around the ankles, frost-bitten lips, and burnt bones….months of leaf feasts peaked in a shivering swaddle and now the sun fills my dimples, rays tug at my limbs I’m moving downstream. This is easy / life in a school of tadpoles, one fishtail to lose, four legs to grow / to one day,

live between river and woods, wide-eyed and quick-tongued but not v the painted ladies. They do not vanish in winter, they migrate to where the food is, thousands of miles across scapes only to home here again come spring, icy winds and squalls no match for their paper-thin canvasses gliding above the surface where you or I try growing tomatoes on a good day. On a bad day, we wear scarves and costly shades so no one can fish for our eyes. Then, everything is tanned, even the flicker of a heart has a tint of chocolate choking it. Why hide? Why not drink the rain and wash in it, make toast in the sun and bathe in it and plummet into the plumbline between the sky and the green, green grass / every day?

Human Family Poem – Far, Far Away

Human Family Poem - Far, Far Away

Far, Far Away is a human family poem, a reflection on the impact of COVID-19 on everyone across the world, an expression of gratitude for relationships and togetherness.

Far, Far Away – a Human Family Poem

We were not prepared: our home is a mansion one end
a shack on the far side, God help the poor idiots stuck there. Before 
Christmas, thieving through the cracks with no one but one gagged guy 
wiring, a swarm began scotching in between the roof tiles and
the guttering ivy scaling skin and bricks like a beaver, indiscriminate,

rulers and buffs fear on the news, this is foliage on marble and sand 
and on the glitter you find below a girl's hairline or between
my fingernails and the dough I prune when you're looking for
a passage through a night days into the dig. Overnight, she dressed
the walls in thick weeds choking rocks and making us shut

every door and every window, stuff cracks with make-shift mortar.
You’re right, this is serious and no, you don’t want ivy mushrooming 
you into a tiny space far, far away from the sway of the day not if your 
mother is rubbing shillings together or your father is skimming work or 
if you dwell where the paint is flaking or where the floors are bulging

and you can't remember the scent of fresh air. Leaning against the 
greening bay window you sleep, glass and leaves between our palms 
this is hard your skin is curling, at night your wrap your arms around 
your legs and knit a rug with each and every string you've ever spun 
and spend days laying where the shore kisses the lake.

Earth Poem – She’s Given to Circles

Earth Poem - She's Given to Circles

She’s Given to Circles is an earth poem, a celebration of her abundant love and care, an appreciation of what we take for granted.

She’s Given to Circles – Earth Poem

First, she fed my child a nut, and after that
she grew sprouts under her skin, of grain
and roses and earthworms. Circling, she blew
fire into our stoves, and on hot stones, she fried
green apples and sewed up lacerated skins.
Mother’s pliés and pirouettes scattered stars into place,
she weaved air and light into a feathery cloth
and lay it down
upon reedy swamps and moonlit highways.
On branches too and where the breeze draughts
the round room inside arms allongés. Allegretto.
And now an Adagio, she's wrestling us down,
she's swallowing us into her lap
where she can stroke our wiery heads mid-arabesque,
one by one. Naptime, she's making us sink, she's
slowing us to sleep in the deep of her cot,
she's giving us to her circles and lullabies.
Along the grooves of her fingerprints,
birdsong and light capering and in her dimples,
the scores of lento airs. Already,
the sky is strumming and the land gliding
its bow on our bedding veins. We drip
into the clinging ocean, one by one.

Care Poem – This Is What We Do

Care Poem

This is What We Do is a care poem, a reflection on how people look after each other and a celebration of the fact that we can.

This Is What We Do – Care Poem

Your fingers are tugging the cobwebs from my eyelashes,
one by one, you herd them like mules. This is the third time in a week 
you'll have to wash the glue off your fingertips. Once more, my hands 
are sleeping on your thighs to the sound of your mouth moving and 
your vocal cords cracking. This is what we do. Sometimes, your head 
hangs low, as if the earth's asking to bed your face afresh, but your jaw 
coggles until the smoke turns steam. I can stand up and square the 
window now, I can make out the treetops through the frosted pane.
This is when you loop in to raise the heavy bottom sash. You fling your 
left leg and I sling my right leg over the sill. In winter, the legs dangling 
outside turn blue. In summer, the wind dries the leaves and reddens 
the skin. Inside, our feet meet the woollen rug and in the middle, a 
branch and twigs with finches and sparrows dropping by.

Littering Poems – The Flesh and Bone People

littering poems

As littering poems go, The Flesh and Bone People is a reflection on fragmentation and the need for integration as individuals and communities.

The Flesh and Bone People – Littering Poems

On a sill at dawn,
 when a flock of flesh and bone people
 are bowing out still,
 
a bird's sharp beak beckons and
 pecks a sesame seed the wind
 barrelled up from the burger joint
 
one mile down the road. The wind
 is kind like that, bowling rubbish
 to places where birds can feast. 
 
The litterers feed them, too, 
 ghosts anchoring in leftovers
 and harking back to flesh and bones,
 
hunger-jerked. Once, the ghosts
 plenished the shell. Now, we tan
 our skin, locked out and rootless
 
until the wick frays and the house
 comes tumbling. Jigsaw pieces 
 strewn, only a gloved, slow hand can
 
unpuzzle them now, sew, set, mend and
 blend our ghost with flesh and bone,
 traversing lollipops, taxes, beads,
 
scaffolding, and chains until, toil
 and oil no longer spoil the soil, 
 until the hour is ours.