New Poems

Searching for meaning whilst walking the dog

At the forest's edge I pause, uncertainly
She races ahead regardless, over confident
Despite trees fallen in the last storm upturned skeletons
Despite the River in the valley floor murmuring threats

I hear wind whispering through branches, whispering
Like so many voices, a chorus of warnings and welcomes

My fears assuaged, she returns to find me, greeting
As together we search for meaning in the signs

Fishing with Ruby

A circular tunnel entrance
It could have been a rat hole
Or a vole could have drilled
Into the soft earth by the river

But Ruby sat entranced
Whilst we fished for Trout
Unblinking she guarded
The entrance to the burrow

As we cast our float into
The stream, the worm wriggling
In the flow, we waited for the tell
Tale sign of fish on the line

Once from the corner
Of my eye, I thought I caught
Sight of something small, black
Whiskered, running above the bank

Turning I saw her move as well
She gave chase, lost the scent
Spent a penny returned to sniff around
Then sit, staring beneath the ground

Let the dog see the rabbit
Or the vole or even the rat
But we left empty handed
Her prey still hiding, the fish uncaught

This year my daughter
Turned forty I have a photo
Taken under the Brooklyn Bridge
It was nineteen eighty five
She was fourteen

Last night I stood under
The Tyne Bridge, oily water
Lapping the south bank
Of the river it reminded
Me of time passing twenty
Six years ago under
Another city bridge

I was in Newcastle, more
Accurately Gateshead,
To see Debbie Harry
Apparently now she's sixty five
It's Deborah no matter
But it was nineteen eighty nine
In Chelsea, New York

I had gone back for my wallet
The guys I was rooming with
Waited on twenty sixth street
When i caught up they
Were so full of it Man they screamed
You missed Blondie, she came out
Of the Chelsea Hotel into a Limo
This close, She was this close
Smell the perfume

Tonight Deborah Harry
Sang her concert with the Northern
Sinfonia and the Jazz Passengers
I had my wallet, I didn't miss her

But there under the High Level Bridge
Spanning continents, time zones, epochs
I was in two places at once


Tsunami

The earth trembles with tectonic echoes
As the geology shifts with elemental forces
The volcano sends out a gentle burst of steam
In the hissing morning, you brace for the impact

Then the silence, the long drawn rushing
Of the tide back, back to where the threatening
Ocean pauses, drawing back its power until
Forcefully flooding the foreshore and silence

Carrying all before it scornfully casting to one side
The structures of the cities in its path, forcing its brutal
Way along avenues where the fleeing crowds panic
And in its wake? just a tumble of wreckage upturned

Like lives torn away, uprooted people searching, desperate
For news of those they once loved and now know no more


Waiting for the weather
to improve the forecast
poor again a rising wind
drives in another storm
The rain streams down
Windows the temperature
Refuses to rise mercury
In the glass falls talk shifts
From global warming
To the return of another ice age

We become prepared for inflation
Depreciating our frozen assets


The bristles of the artists
Moustache trace the canvas
Like kisses on the upturned
Cheeks of the young girls
The mystery of oils traced
On the stretched fabric
The tragedies of paint
Spoiled images strained
Through the imagination
Of the artist each brush stroke
An indication of desire of hope
Images realised and set
On the fabrics outstretched skin
The desires symphonies songs
Reaching to the critics yes