the tart and the vicar 1888 (a biographical poem)
a curious addition to the poems I have composed and somewhat different in that, except for the first few lines (that I woke up thinking of a couple of years ago), I did some quick biographical research after which the rest of the verses seemed to flow naturally… this then is the imagined and fateful […]
smells like groupthink (a vintage poem)
in checking out the dusty, virtual shelves of my old pc this, another poem heretofore not published, that I initially wrote perhaps close to 40 years ago — so well before the current age of ‘small screens’ and handheld devices that have, in some ways, displaced the traditional tool of mass-influence the ‘tv’! yet television […]
bitter reflections
the sad reality of aging… from first-hand experience 😉 Bitter Reflections The bathroom window’s muted lightsoothes the mirror’s evidence of the toll of time, anxiety and stress,fooling the eye into taking less offence But such misplaced vanity evaporateswhen sun’s harsh light savages and dispels the narcissistic momentbluntly baring all the actual ravages For, as towel […]
string theory (a poem)
a poem I wrote in 2022, still consider it to be a work in progress but I thought i’d add it to the archive here ‘for the record’: string theory Puppets all, we dance in response to the Master’s mightWho pulls the theoretical strings so tightHis Piper’s tune makes us gyrate and cavortBut His efforts […]
tsunami — man’s final folly
something I wrote a few years ago. delivered as ever from the ether onto the paper in front of me like a kind of ‘download’, although inspired no doubt in part by the fact that I had recently read about the prospect of a massive (3 kilometer high!) tsunami hitting the west coast of Portugal, […]
happy new year 2024
post-festive, post-covid, post-flu, almost post-human… the muse seemed to be on extended vacation the suddenly she returns with an ironic riposte… Happy New Year Stressed, depressedAnd lacking restBathed in a lakeOf disinterestPost-festive malaiseBesets my daysThrough half-formed thoughtsIt weaves its waysMisdirecting my moodThrough an endless mazeMisbegotten areThe games it playsAs it twists my mindLeaving joy behindMy […]
why we love bees | a poem for children of all ages
originally published in the children’s book ‘Why We Love…Bees’ by A Graham Smith and available for kindle or in paperback here why-we-love-bees
jabberwocky | someone else’s ‘nonsense’ poem
jabberwocky is possibly the most acclaimed nonsense rhyme ever written in the English language. Charles Dodgson writing under his pen-name Lewis Carroll included it in his famous children’s story: Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and it tells of the slaying of a fearsome beast called the The Jabberwock! The poem […]
a poet’s plight | an ironic short poem
Ironically inspired by a ‘visitor from Porlock’ this short poem refers to the individual who even caused the tale of Kubla Khan to be cut short… 🙂
apocalypse | as the four horsemen ride out in 2022
with humanity anything but free from the pandemic pestilence of the last two and a half years, with war in the news by the day, and famine for as many as 200 million forecast by the ‘powers that be’… it seems that we are beset daily with tales of economic woes on the horizon: recession, […]