When he set up his easel, As often before on the hill Above the Chemin des Lauves, Clouds gathered over Aix And storm cones flew. Cézanne...

Does the empty hand of Zeus and flexing arm prepare a thunderbolt perhaps for those who cross his empty stare? Leica on paunch, a man...

Strangers at a busy hour Glance casually at this garden Where stones have not worn well Since some minor Phidias carved them. Sparrows...

The world enters in flashes, Like the sun through wickerwork, As they sit at the table, Arboured together. A pump handle tips, A mirror...

A key, a telescope, a drum, A watch, a plate, a teacup or a knife, Objects have lives if we look closely, They are yours and not yours,...

We left by train my American friend and I in patchy snow and a cold March wind for Leningrad in the sixties. Our Finnish guide had a...

Quam tenui a filo pendet Today is Sunday and here day trippers accumulate where Constable stood and Willy Lott lived eighty years to...

The gibbous moon Hangs above aerials In a rich, blue-black, Shading to violet sky. Titania dreams; The silent shrubs regard her; The Sea...

Warsaw 1981 Friends, the curfew lifted, Celebrate a truce In churches candlelit This Christmas Eve. Hands grip the backs of pews, A...

Something there is that does not like a wall (Robert Frost) The writings on the wall at Checkpoint Charlie, now East Berliners stroll...

The girl’s flesh sang of beauty As he stroked in once again Hand and eye in harmony, A landscape wet with rain. Kindness filtered through...

For William Golding Hunched behind a lectern This man in yellow shirt And bright blue tie Derides processional ants Who carry through the...

When the rupture came, Soren Kierkegaard found loss not absolute. Connection persevered. Regina was given back To that corkscrew mind, In...

The safety curtain creaks aloft A gradual hush descends The audience settles to enjoy The wars and loves of Troy, Interpreted by...

Imagine Fletcher, chatting with Shakespeare, ageing at fifty, saying: What about this Spanish bloke, Cervantes? Quixote’s made a stir at...

Eyes open Close your eyes when dawn is falling Listen to truths you prefer not to know Open eyes wide when the dark is rising Discover...

Twixt what is there and what we see resides, he felt, reality. Corneal scars upon his sight scatter bright dendritic light, a retinue of...

Regard this tea pot with great caution It hides its history calmly steaming With its teacup and its milk jug Tea endorsed by Dr Johnson...

I had a dream this night That I was at a conference Of eminent men who could Pontificate on any learned topic. I had been quite...

Arnold was wrong to say the old feel no emotion, None! They feel, but not perhaps the joy which Coleridge said he lost when still quite...