In The Poetry

On the Ning Nang Nong

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There’s a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tree tops jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can’t catch ‘em when they do!
So it’s Ning Nang Nong
The cows go [...]

Another ride in the time machine takes me back about ten years to my daughter’s teenage years, as she stepped out of childhood.

Outgrown

It is both sad and a relief to fold so carefully
her outgrown clothes and line up the little worn shoes
of childhood, so prudent, scuffed and particular.
It is both happy and horrible to send [...]

Winter Garden

The season’s anguish, crashing whirlwind, ice,
Have passed, and cleansed the trodden paths
That silent gardeners have strewn with ash.

The iron circles of the sky
Are worn away by tempest;
Yet in this garden there is no more strife:
The Winter’s knife is buried in the earth.
Pure music is the cry that tears
The birdless branches in the wind.
No blossom [...]

Queen Anne’s Lace

Her body is not so white as
anemone petals nor so smooth – nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at [...]

Perfection Isn’t Like A Perfect Story

I think often of the time I was perfectly happy.
And sat by the harbour reading a borrowed Cavafy.
You were with me of course and the night before we
Played bar billiards, green under lights, in the cafe
Postponing our first shared bedtime and every ball
That didn’t come back made us look at [...]

The Elwood Organic Fruit and Vegetable Shop

I will go walking in Elwood with my mind as smooth as a marrow
winking at the unruffled sky throwing its light down for free
letting the gardens exude their well-groomed scents and thinking everything good
to the Elwood Organic Fruit and Vegetable Shop:
for the counter is democratically in the centre and [...]

After I read this a while ago a man came and took me aside after the reading and told me he thought it was clever how I’d linked the title of my book, The Boy From the Chemist is Here to See You, with the substance, treacle, and I nodded and smiled politely but had [...]

‘Siren Song’ – the Sirens had the top halves of women and the bottom halves of birds and they were said to sit on their island and sing so beautifully that anybody who heard them would jump overboard and then they would eat these men – they were always men who did this. Ulysses was [...]

This one’s a memory – it really happened – but it’s also about the way that children mix up real things with things people tell them and fairy stories.

Cold Knap Lake

We once watched a crowd
pull a drowned child from the lake.
Blue-lipped and dressed in water’s long green silk
she lay for dead.

Then kneeling on the earth,
a [...]

White Vase

Two figures on a sofa, side by side,
The stench of bitter almonds, smoke and sweat;
A man who ate no meat lies with his bride.

Fresh tulips and narcissi cast aside,
A white vase tipped; a chiffon dress splashed wet.
Two figures on a sofa, side by side.

The room is hushed, its spell defies the tide
Of history – [...]