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When I took my mattress my duvet and their dreams
I said I was keeping them for safety and I almost believed it. I laid down in the middle of the nearest woodland and named it Mine. I rigged canvas between two branches but the wind whistled through my bone marrow. Waking in the night, I started a fire, using their dreams as kindling. I had plenty to spare. Still I did not sleep soundly, So I felled the ancient oaks and built a bed frame from the trunks, raising myself above the cold ground. When this failed, I chopped down every tree I could see, whittled and planed the wood to planks, transformed the land to make myself a shelter, created walls around my bed to define outside.
Gathering
We are racing against the dying of the day
over fields flooded with twigs and silence
towards a broiling bruise left by a canula,
our tinny engine whine now a mosquito.
Ego Death on the M4
I am driving home at night
hands gripping the wheel
empty tarmac surrounding me
fertiliser stinging my nostrils
The engine shaking all the space
between my scattered atoms
Three Tips to Declutter Your Life
I love performing poetry at open mics and often write poems specifically for performance. This poem is one that is written for the stage, not the page. I read at Satellite of Love's wonderful open mic recently and Barry Hollow was kind enough to film it.
Churn
A Manifesto for Art as Self Care
I've been thinking a lot about creative 'rules' and how arbituary they are. As it's the new year, I've been wondering where I want to take my poetry and my creativity and have decided I want to do it for its own sake. I want to focus more on the wellbeing aspects of writing and making things rather than the end result.
Finding Out
The forecast sighs
Amber and scarlet triangles describe
the island. These winding lanes
2023 in Review: Personal reflections
Once again I closed off last year and started the new one by filling out a year compass booklet. Although the years are arbitrary, I find this time to reflect and reset immensely valuable.
2023 in review: Poisoning the Well
2023 was another year of unnecessary wars and suffering, with Russia and Ukraine rumbling on with no end in sight. Israel responded to a terrorist attack with maximum aggression against civilians, seeking vengeance against an oppressed population. It's hard to focus on the positives when the news seems so relentlessly bleak and when history repeats itself so frequently. Collectively, we never seem to learn the lessons of the past.