Questing

I am a strong believer in renewable energy, but it’s not a free lunch.  Significant amounts of energy has to be used to change quartz sand to silicon.   Silane gas produced during the manufacturing process is extremely explosive, and explosions occur.  Another risk is that we currently have no …

The Last Word

By way of a change, here is a short piece of prose: In a writers’ group this morning we were challenged to write a short story in 150 words.  The story below contains exactly that number.   The light was starting to fade, and breaking soft waves seemed even quieter.  …

Moving Hands

How many things that  seemed eternal early in life, have completely vanished?                       Sometime in the nineteen-fifties it perched on the hundred-foot workshop,  where Waitrose’s  entrance is now. It would pace the working lives of hundreds. First as boys, learning to master metal …

Last Orders

This poem won a ‘Commended’ award in the recent 2016 George Crabbe Poetry Competition.  The competition judge, Moniza Alvi, wrote of ‘Last Orders’ “Tragic and hard hitting, I found this poignant poem compelling.”  ” This is a poem with a real sense of urgency”. Every night at seven, he shed …

Irony

During a few days in Liverpool we visited Crosby Beach, to see the Antony Gormley sculptures arranged as  ‘Another Place’.  Two friends had been examining the work, and turned to walk off the beach.  I took the photograph below, and the poem was written after I examined the image, using an …

Deleting Footnotes

This poem recently was selected by Helen Ivory for appearance in the poetry webzine  ‘Ink, Sweat and Tears‘, it also appeared the the Suffolk Poetry Society’s magazine ‘Twelve Rivers’.     PLEASE CLICK ON THE ARROW BUTTON ABOVE TO HEAR THIS POEM   You can never prepare for this task. It …

Entrance

    PLEASE CLICK ON THE ARROW BUTTON ABOVE TO HEAR THIS POEM   He glides the Hog to the sidewalk, blips the throttle then kills the big twin cam but not cleanly, the rig shakes twice with pre-ignition. Shit!  –  He hates when that happens, it spoils an entrance. …

In its defence

I was asked today to write about a hat! Please click on the arrow button above to hear this poem   The good thing is that it travels well. It has little style only patterned stitch work marks its drab coarse surface. Khaki cover for a nascent bald patch, a …

Spot the Hat

This poem started in a session of poets writing together, with Michael Laskey and Dean Parkin. Dean produced a ‘Spot the Ball’ page from an old newspaper, and we all enjoyed marking our X.    We all missed!   PLEASE CLICK ON THE ARROW BUTTON ABOVE TO HEAR THIS POEM …

Black Friday

Who considers this American import matches the idea of ‘Seasonal Goodwill’?   Black Friday, the official day to be suitably depressed by buyers and sellers greed. Not to be confused with The Black Death, but similar in effect.        

Simple Joy (for Jacqui Jones interactive artwork at The Undercroft)

This poem is itself an interactive response.  Jacqui liked the reference to ‘simple joy’ in my poem Migration Counterpoint and decided that concept would be the subject matter of the interactive installation she was to display in The Undercroft in Norwich, for the 2015 Norwich Fringe Festival.  When she told …

Cycles of the Light

National Poetry day’s theme this year was Light, and Suffolk Poetry Society invited me to join some of the other members to read poetry and celebrate the day in Aldeburgh.  We took turns to read on the circular staircase of The South Lookout on Aldeburgh beach in perfect weather, warm sun …

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