Writer of Poetry, Screen Plays, Stage Plays & Fiction
Writer of Poetry, Screen Plays, Stage Plays & Fiction
'Castell Dinas Bran', Richard Wilson, circa 1771
The path zigzags upwards to the keep, like
smoke or a hare hounded. Magpies lowfly
the gorse, bank to a clump of pine, barks pink
as coral. Ravens wheel. Birds and the wind
disdain the ruins peasants carted, raised,
razed and thieved. Before allegiances, walls
was this hill, that vast, limestone precipice
and, everywhere, silent, ancient waters.
Whoever sees the turf worn with walkers’
traffic and earth’s crust shining,
Immemorially, at the ebb tide’s turn,
they pull for the bank, moor, wade, cast and wait.
(Terns flock, screeching). They haul the full net
to the edge of the sand. Kneeling, they pluck out
the shrimps, prawns, crawfish and return the rest.
The water slowly rises about them.
The Baltic, Gateshead © SCES 2004
Through the open hotel window, above
the river’s lulling sounds and revellers’ shouts,
kittiwakes cry, nesting on the art gallery.
I think of the oceans they have crossed
only to be here. Sometimes, when I
wake in the night, I cannot hear you breathe.
Another Place ©SCES 2008
We crunch through razor shells and squelch through
blackish silt – there is coal in the drenched sand –
to reach the artist’s cast iron avatars.
They are steadfast against anglers, vandals,
local Tories, jet skiers, the Coastguard,
and the RSPB – but not the wind
or the sea. Some are rusting deeply,
some barnacled already, some sinking
or rising – others missing on this
shifty shore. They have watched the North Sea.
Shipwrecked on his way to Ireland, the saint
was washed ashore to the foot of the cliff:
founded the church we walk uphill towards
between hedgerows of honeysuckle
and meadowsweet. The church squares to the wind.
A cemetery of slate edges the cliff.
We look down. A seal bobs by the lobster pots.
Horses gallop across the beach, a dog
barks at a black headed gull that lifts
into the air as light as spume and we,
almost entirely by chance, find a rare orchid
on the dunes among the marram grass.
TOWARDS A DEFINITION
TOWARDS A DEFINITION
THE PLOT AGAINST THESE ISLANDS
THE PLOT AGAINST THESE ISLANDS
THE PLOT AGAINST THESE ISLANDS