BOOKS
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THE WEATHER HOUSE
Published: 2017
Publisher: Indigo Dreams Press
Number of poems: 29
Price: £8
Notes: Written with Susan Taylor
From this collection:
TO PETER POWELL
We tried five places
in the wind before this heath.
Just off the road,
we now hold tautly to the lines
as the kite climbs fast
and children in each passing car
look on.
Tied to the diamond by sight,
we stumble over tufts,
but always our moves
translate to sweeps and flutters
in this bright air.
There is a magic in the scant control of flight;
a witchery that never falls to earth.
INTI
Published: 2016
Publisher: Oversteps Books
Number of poems: 46
Price: £10
From this collection:
MAKING FUN
When we told Irish jokes
the Irish told of the Kerry man
and in Kerry they told of the men
of a small village near the sea.
In that village, one bar in particular
took the butt of all their gags
and in that bar, one man, sat at the end,
who once said something foolish.
SPOTTING CAPYBARAS IN THE
WORK OF MARC CHAGALL
Published: 2016
Publisher: Indigo Dreams Press
Number of poems: 20
Price: £8
From this collection:
IMAGES
I googled Marc Chagall prints,
looking for the one that set me off,
clicked on images and here are hundreds
in their primaries, swooping across the tiles.
I've never seen them like that
it's not like an exhibition, a retrospective.
They're piled up here in collage,
a mosaic of me.
You don't mind they're free for everyone to see?
I've had my fun with them,
they kept me in bread and wine,
took me round the world. It seems
a fair transaction, if anybody cares.
Do you not feel this way with words?
WASTRELS
Published: 2015
Publisher: Paper Dart Press
Number of poems: 24
Notes: Mini poems and aphorisms.
From this collection:
NECKLACE
She's wearing a necklace of silver leaves,
filigreed, tinking together like a windchime.
As she moves about the house,
he finds the noise of her distracting.
Stops her catching birds, though.
Sold out
Awaiting reprint
EARTHED
Published: 2015
Publisher: Paper Dart Press
Number of poems: 22
Price: £6
Notes: Written with Susan Taylor using the tanka form, throughout.
From this collection:
TERTIARY
Finally, granite
eroded into huge teeth,
permanently bared.
The first forest was redwood
giants standing on high land.
Sub-tropical ferns,
magnolia and cypress
covered new valleys,
where kingfishers and turtles
shared the mud banks with hippos.
A PLACE WHERE
ODD ANIMALS STAND
Published: 2012
Publisher: Oversteps Books
Number of poems: 47
Price: £10
From this collection:
28 WEEKS
for Matt
We know you now by kicks,
by the tremors of your moves
in the hill of her body.
We know you by her gasps
as you find another organ
to play your fingers on.
In the squeeze of juices moving
comes your pulse
like a second hand,
counting two to one of hers in sleep.
You're getting older, to the point
when you'll be no years old.
HE|SHE
Published: 2012
Publisher: itinerant press
Number of poems: 40
Notes: Prose poems. Book completely handmade.
Price: £18
From this collection:
THE CAT'S NAME
She bought a cat from a cat refuge, black with white paws and a blaze across its chest. The cat had been involved in a road accident, but had recovered well and the only obvious sign was a slight lean to the right when it walked. She called it Catalyst and was quite proud of the quip, until a friend pointed out it was insulting to the cat. She felt this was going a bit far; hadn't Eliot said cats only responded to their secret names? However, because of the slight lean to the right, she changed its name to LibDem.
TWENTY-SIX CLERIHEW
Published: 2011
Publisher: Paper Dart Press
Number of poems: 26
Price: £5
From this collection:
T
Elizabeth Taylor
once dated a sailor,
but didn't have as much fun with a jack tar
as she did later, making Cleopatra.
QUIRKS
Published: 2006
Publisher: Oversteps Books
Number of poems: 41
Price: £8
From this collection:
TITANIA
from the painting by John Simmons
They're only my dress wings;
wouldn't do the job,
haven't got the lift -
like a bumble bee
and while it might be deeply spiritual,
this gossamer's not ideal.
Even at Midsummer it gets damned cold,
full moon or no.
I realise the hair looks good,
Oberon tells me... when he's here,
but bear in mind
the washing.
Knee-length curls are good on State occasions,
but they're a devil with the brambles.
What I'd give for a page boy
and a thermal body-stocking.
A WEIGHT OF SMALL THINGS
Published: 1981
Publisher: Lincolnshire and Humberside Arts
Number of poems: 34
Price: £6
Notes: Photo illustrations by Ron Harrison
From this collection:
CAMPSITE
At seven in the morning
my love woke me with an ant.
"It crawled up my breast," she said.
Ants are diverse creatures.
They don't mind heat
but note the time of day,
run an ordered life
but understand no politics,
bury their dead
but with no words of grief,
for ants don't know compassion
(nor, it seems, do lovers
early in the morning).
UNBROKEN
Published: 1979
Publisher: Nottingham Poetry Society
Number of poems: 18
Price: £4
Notes: Written with Susan Taylor
From this collection:
SURPRISE ATTACK
For once it is on time when
for you and, if all admitted, me
it would be better late,
and now you threaten reprisals
to stop this repeating scene.
British Rail has made provision
for terrorist attack,
but did not cater for you,
sitting in the cutting with a pitchfork
and a tractor strapped to the line.
BLUE SEA QUESTION MARK
Published: 1977
Publisher: Simon Williams
Number of poems: 20
Price: £4
From this collection:
COFFEE
We could walk,
you and me,
sorry I,
along the front
long into the evening.
Arm in arm
they'd see us,
sorry me,
as I walk away
along the water's edge.
We could return late,
back fro coffee,
sorry chocolate.
I don't like coffee
but I keep some in case of you.