Biography

Richard was created when a meteor and an albatross made love in mid flight. He was found hanging from a damson tree by an old gipsy woman.

After suckling him on on the breast of a lama, she later sold him to a Ukranian circus that was touring some of the most notorious taverns in the Forest of Dean.

Thanks to the intervention of a militant pack of badgers, Richard was rescued from his imprisonment in a local cave under the guard of a band of Haitian pygmies.

The chief of the badger clan then hauled him by the scruff of the neck to the gothic mansion of the eccentic Lord Farrawick, who schooled the young boy in classics, algebra, astronomy, rhetoric, egyptology, forensic lacemaking and, of course, poetics.

Eliciting concern from his adoptive parent over his growing interest in morris dancing, the then teenage boy was sent to be cared for in a nunnery where, despite his more feminine tendencies, he managed to father twenty-four fairy-like children with some of the more liberal and curious of the sisters.

After working for some years as a cobbler and a cooper from a canal boat in Awre, Richard moved to Manchester where he now educates young people as well as writing and performing his poetry.

Contact him if you like. He might answer you.

POETRY

My Heart Is Alluvium - Collection

The Bell Of The Silent Tower - Collection

EPIC

Justin and the Forbidden Water

Ascalon Canto The First (WIP)


DRAMA

The Twist Of the Vines

Lake Goblins

Vardalek


JUVENALIA

Sky - Collection


MONOGRAPHS

Argument for the Re-establishment of the Roman Empire

Samples

WHEN THE EARTH IS LICKED UP BY THE SUN'S FLAMES

When the earth is licked up by the sun’s flames,
What will remain when all matter is gone?
For are we not counters in cosmic games,
With instructions written in archaic song,
And anarchic dice, loaded by nature,
One number is ours, infinity hers,
One lucky throw in favour of creatures,
The rest of time’s void misfortunate curse?
How cruel to switch on souls and then switch off,
To give us a fractional glimpse of joy,
Against the elements’ power and wrath,
But maybe this woe is false and decoys,
For though all matter corrodes and decays,
The photons of light we made, never fade.

VENUS (LOVE IS NOT A DEMOCRACY)

No options
It’s my destiny
Even if
It ruins the rest of me

No return
Once your swept
You’re adrift
Away with the rest

You can’t
Decide to fall
Love is
Not a democracy
You can’t
Crawl up a waterfall
Venus has
Got the best of me

No lawyers
Govern this strange lore
You can’t
Appeal or adjourn

Do not try
To boldly overthrow
It will
Snap your crossbow

You can’t
Deride to rule
Love is
Not a testimony
You can’t
Veil what’s culpable
Venus has
Made a mess of me

UNTITLED VILLANELLE

The dancing rushes by the stream
To be sure they last forever,
Into their fair reflections preen.

In all my nostalgic dreams,
To be sure they never sever,
I glance into the opal stream -

As the rushes dance forever.


THE BOTTOM OF THE FOUNTAIN

Don’t reach for the coins at the bottom
They are there and they sit and listen.
Sometimes when the sun catches the water,
These discs they dance and their faces glisten.
For years they were flipped and passed and spent -
They had meant joy, laughter and even tragedy,
But their new life began dropped into the fountain
Washed and freshened from all their anxieties.
Now they are part of a fellowship of wishes,
Not a token of dearth or a counter of gain,
Watch them be furred by a coat of green moss
And splendid mercurial rust when it rains.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.