It’s an old one, but that time of year keeps rolling around. Pumpkin
Pumpkin
from my poetry blog
Pumpkin
4
Tag Archives: Poem
The Electric Night
She Sings
With ABBA’s return, I though it an ideal time to post this poem that was included in my first collection, Heading North, published by Nordland Publishing.
I’d written it whilst sat up one late Autumn night, listening to an early Agnetha Fältskog song, composed in her native tongue when she was just sixteen. A downpour occurring just beyond the limits of that darkened room contributed to the general mood: she was singing of a doomed love affair; I was thinking of other times.
Hymn To Hillbillies
from my poetry blog
Hymn To Hillbillies
Where We Used To
from my poetry blog.
Where We Used To
Word Jam #15
from my poetry blog
Word Jam #15
brigant
April not a fool, just a joker … This is hame clawed in icicles since April’s first weekend. April feels a brigant, with its hoards of dark clouds …
brigant
A great review of my second collection In Brigantia, (link above), written by Shetland-based poet Nat Hall. Please check out her work too.
Seven Weeks On
Seven weeks on from my post about the three lost fishermen (one of whom was related to someone my wife knows), it’s been revealed that their bodies have been recovered from the coastline of Wirral and Blackpool. It’s tragic, but not altogether unexpected.
At least now they can be given a decent burial and their families afforded some closure.
That evening I came across these lines by George Mackay Brown, and once again my thoughts turned to those men and the loved ones they’d left behind:
R.I.P
Roaming In Rome, Connecting In Retrospect
What a difference a bit of sunshine makes to our locked-down spirits!
I sat a while in our town centre gardens, drinking a coffee while watching people come and go. It was almost, almost, like the world before, when nothing impinged on our intentions and freedom other than schedules and finance.
The new warmth took me back even further, to around 2006, when I was in Rome. I would get up early and after showering go for a walk along the Tiber. Along the way I’d call for a bottle of water from a small shop that I knew of, tucked away down a small backstreet, that was championed by the locals as it didn’t charge the inflated prices that the others inflicted upon we tourists.
I would loop a route back round to take in Peter and Paul in St.Peter’s Square, up there high on their pedestals, before the crowds arrived with their clicking cameras and eager eyes. As the day wore on, with the sun well on its way to reach its zenith, there were no shortage of churches that I could choose from to seek respite in their cool stone shade.
It was on one of those days, easy and long, that I was sat having a beer next to the Colosseum when my wife messaged to inform me that the girl we fostered had shaved off her eyebrows!
Talk about being hooked right back into the ‘real’ world back home.
It’s funny how different places bring different memories, small connections that lead into each other over time. Hopefully soon there will be new places offering new memories and connections to be made down the line.
Anyway, that particular memory found a home in my second poetry collection In Brigantia, born of a conversation with one girl that made a connection with the recollection of another.
First Draft: From A Winter Walk
from my poetry blog. I don’t like the last lines, but as the title of the post says-it’s just a quick first draft.
First Draft: From A Winter Walk
