Culloden Moor
Clearances? Don’t like the term, a Highland chief protests in chiselled English voice. The English did not clear Scots out. They went...
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Welcome
Please enjoy the poetry I have written throughout my life. Just click on a theme or browse the full collection below.
Face on a Wall
Here in this quiet house all sleep, And I give time to memory, Hang a sepia photo on a wall, Pull sketches on brown paper From a drawer....
6 views
Oil and Water
An oily smear on a still pool. A friend obliquely watching Drew close and said: How beautiful! Perceive the rainbow pattern On the...
10 views
Border Country
I drive into the wind in border country and quickly traverse names upon the map I'd thought large towns, but find dwindled to mere...
7 views
Everest 1924
Ice-pick gone, feet first, face down, Malory slid, clawed at the scree, Skewed to a halt, humped miles up, Like a cuttle bone on a beach,...
6 views
Two Figures
Two figures stood waving goodbye, The man, my father, one foot in the gutter, Watery blue eyes more apt to fix on nothing But fixing now...
25 views
Colours of Love
Who can deny hubris when writing of love? Who can define its quality, its chemistry? Would some kind of litmus test explain elusive...
7 views
Tom’s Reunion Dinner
The large and paunchy man, with straddled legs and slippered feet, paddling across a hotel floor to sit because he cannot stand, evokes...
10 views
A Royal Visit
In circumstances such as war, Patriots white lies deplore. They speak sincerely from the heart (In war there is less need of art) Pride...
12 views
The Great Storm 1987
Epiphany Flecks of rain adorn the glass; a fluttering chaffinch clings to a swinging twig; Atlantic winds buffet each leafless bush, and...
25 views
Facedown Clock
The clock of his life had a slow tick And a large surprised white face, Which was seldom seen, Since it went better Face downward. It...
8 views
I Broke My Heart
Father found a letter to my mother from a soldier who had been at home when Father was away. Mother quite denied that more than...
19 views
Winter Words
for Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth The echoes of a gift thought lost haunt the approach of age as a forgotten page...
21 views
Light Falling
Looking at you now, light falling, wondering what you are thinking, bent forward in profile, old, yes, but somehow beautiful, although...
59 views
With Klee’s Two Lost Ones
Two lost ones walk proudly into the picture, What do we make of this brown figure striding or the orange one smaller, momently pausing? A...
14 views
Down the Line
a tribute to Paul Klee Painting like poetry begins with the Line. It labours uphill and bounces fast down, heads in a curve when gravity...
20 views
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