Writer of Poetry, Screen Plays, Stage Plays & Fiction
Writer of Poetry, Screen Plays, Stage Plays & Fiction
Not the Michelin two star French restaurant
in the Kentish High Weald, nor the West Coast
jazz saxophonist who sessioned with Brubeck,
but the British woodland wild flower, or weed.
There are two definitions of ‘weed’ –
the official: a wild plant growing
where it is not wanted; and mine: a plant
whose existence is not dependent,
in any way, on the whim of humankind.
Herb Robert – aka Red Robin –
is a wild and elegant geranium,
Bought for the Coronation, our first TV
had a nine inch screen. It stood in a corner
of the front room. My grandmother, who
had outlived two husbands, two World Wars,
and once had tea with Buffalo Bill,
thought that those appearing on ‘the box’
could see those watching, so was discerning
about whom she chose to watch, and when.
She particularly liked ‘What’s My Line?’, an import
from America, in which a panel
of four TV ‘personalities’
For Evie Chapman
She fetches me a mermaid’s purse she has found
among the seaweed where the sand
meets the mound of pebbles the waves have built
and rebuilt over the centuries.
The small black pouch, with tendrils like broken straps
and firm as dried leather, is an empty
egg case, from which a shark or a ray hatched
on the seabed, probably between here
and Ireland. Tides detached and chance brought
this empty womb,
‘…mourning and sorrow shall end,
when I return to Jerusalem…’
Mediaeval Jewish Prayer
‘We suffer from an incurable malady: Hope.’
Mahmoud Darwish
On a land mass that is the size of landlocked
Rutland, the smallest county in England,
Gaza, the Earth’s third most populated
polity, has two small rivers and a hill.
Its city, four thousand years ago,
was the site of a Pharaonic fortress.
From the kitchen door of the holiday let,
down the hill, over roof tops, on a clear day,
are the summits of the mainland’s mountains;
from the front door the gaol’s stone grey massif;
above the cottage’s small courtyard,
where the privy was and now are festive lights
and a hot tub burbling, is a square of sky.
Around the corner in Steeple Lane
high in the prison wall is a door,
with rivets either side to hold the scaffold
when it was needed.
Only the highest tides reach this small island’s
sandstone rocks. A collar of flaxen sand
surrounds it. A quarter of a mile north
is Middle Eye. A hundred yards further
is Hilbre, habitation of hermits,
custom’s officers, weather stations.
These three are rugged, stony outcrops
in the mouth of the estuary.
Leaving West Kirby’s suburban promenade,
we had walked, at low water, to Little Eye
across the Dee’s hard, striated sands.
Westward is Wales, and the redundant lighthouse
at Point of Ayr,
A SORT OF KADDISH
THE FOURTH ANGLO-AFGHAN WAR
BENLLECH BAY LATE SPRING 2021
HIMALAYAN CHARNEL
HIMALAYAN CHARNEL