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....
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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.
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
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
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
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
Golden Oldie
How does it feel to be a golden oldie? Jeremy asked John at ninety. No X, no Y, no Larry? One feels very lonely Don't take that road said...
22 views
The Penny Drops
Like a copper coin the sun shone through the mist, withdrew to re-emerge a yellow moon, then hid as vapour thickened and there was only...
14 views
Henry Collins, obiit Dec 1969
Gaunt arms and grey gloves direct the hearse, direct us all to park in spaces under names upon tablets on a wall. Soft music plays. We...
15 views
To Anne on her Fiftieth Birthday
It has gone fast, life, And your children now travel As you, too, have travelled To a world long beyond us To which I was stranger. But...
41 views
Last of Four
I missed your birth - the only one of the four I did not see. The celebration of your infancy was overlaid with care, so now there are...
37 views
Lines for my Daughters
The day after your uncle turned three, The world changed. Standing on Euston Station, Another uncle in your grandma’s arms, A siren’s...
21 views
Providence
She lives today who might have died had you not taken that particular path, under the tower, across the vacant square, past registers of...
8 views
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