On the train this morning
I sat alone, by the window
Where normally there’d be coffee, warm
and all the world’s news in my ear

Instead, I chose dry silence
I chose the undulating wildness
strobing past my view way
I chose high green hills
and glinting mirrored rivers 
I chose lone trees, centuries old
strong against the elements
I chose lambs and sheep
moving in pairs or herds
I cho...

Read and leave comments (3)

A poem generated from random words over the course of April. See comment below for full details of how I wrote  it.

A chilly April morning. Lazy lambs 

couch lifeless in the fields like balled up fists 

in woolly mitts. I need no diagram

to clarify the Spring: the tousled strips

of trees beside the river view an uproarious 

theatre of water, the riot of the weir and lak...

Read and leave comments (6)

Documenting the silence 
the bus stop is almost reclaimed by nature
until the bus arrives after a long conversation
with the broken country path
in a meditative rhythm each morning 

disgorging the mood 
its wheels on cast aside leaves
inbetween the sun barely awake 
in the early morning sky
and the sinking moon 

recording the moment afterwards
restlessly in symmetries in gentle wind
...

Read and leave comments (4)

Touron........A tourist who unfortunately also happens to be a moron!

The “Tourons” made up a picnic of all their favourite food and drink,

they brought along everything from home except the kitchen sink.

Bags bursting with goodies, enough to see them through the day,

but they left behind the empty packaging for others to throw away.

So much effort taken to pack everything...

Read and leave comments (4)

This our countryside we must revere.

What would we do if it was not here?

It should all be loved and all be preserved,

To show to everyone it is deserved.

There is no more lovely pleasant scene

Than hills and vales - all covered green.

View the flowers and trees - don't take for granted

All of the things that have been planted.

And if there's something that should...

Read and leave comments (1)

The pomegranates
are ripe on the tree
across the road
and the swallows
are skimming beneath the power lines
and the soft blue sky
The washing on the balcony rail is dry
The village dogs bark
Church bells summon summer in
and the early morning peace
is broken as a tractor heads for the fields
The sun heats the soft grey
feathers on the pigeon’s back
and he leaves his chimney perch
abo...

Read and leave comments (3)

Dear friend
a sigh is leaving me
I can concentrate now, finally
a statue standing on the jetty
the lake’s slow wash below the boards
hypnotising me

I feel freer now than ever
more than I did back there
I don’t know how you toil on
those boiling days below the city
tinned-life crammed searching for air

You wrote of the love you found
that you always dreamed was waiting
head cocked ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Hanging in the shed

Are four dead pheasants and a woodcock

On a makeshift table

Some half-eaten sandwiches and a thermos

A drab green waterproof

Hangs on a nail above some boots and drips

The man sits talking to a friend

And rubbing his damp hair with an old towel

Outside dogs are sniffing around the cars

Ignoring the rain one man is hunched over his ...

Read and leave comments (0)

I rejoice to see that old wood five-bar gate

that still stands guard beneath the ancient beech

to a field sloping gently down the hill.

The gate from an old farm track - now lost to time -

has seen so many seasons, so many harvests pass

and must have known an age of scythes and stooks

of horse drawn harrows, ploughs and wooden carts.

What could it tell of the village...

Read and leave comments (2)

The soft blown snow that fell five days ago

Crisp frozen now by these five frosty nights

Still blankets all the fields and moors to show

Where pheasant clattered off on noisy flights

While footfall of the lesser birds is scribed

Less deep; and here a small bank vole has run;

There passed red fox and rabbit side by side

Though time kept them apart and saved the one

At the wo...

Read and leave comments (0)

"Heavy Snow in Wales": 30th January 2019

A sheet of pure white covers her face: that land I thought I knew

frozen beneath its covering, buried ever deeper in its icy tomb

the contours I know so well:

every dip and valley; hill and gully

smoothed by this mantling shroud that descended

as time slipped slowly away, locking us in its white eternity

One last frozen tear d...

Read and leave comments (2)

Below the incurious sheep on the hill

                that stare at me as they endlessly chew

The sun is warm and I perch on a stone to watch quietly

As it is reflected off the surface of the lake:

                the part not covered with pond weed

                where flies dip and buzz

                dragonflies and damselflies dart

                     and hover:

    ...

Read and leave comments (2)

As I pass beyond my summer wall

Once more the land embraces my spirit

And its silence becomes my prayer

While I and heaven hear

The wind whispered psalm

As dusk caresses the tree tops

That surround my field fane -

I walk slowly through its grassy nave

Lost in my old memories

And pause at the far gate:

The sun sinks low behind me

And my long shadow stretches out in ...

Read and leave comments (0)

The thick ice on the pond is dimpled on its face:

The same snow that coated the field

Had landed on the frozen pool to yield

To ice its fragile beauty and feather grace

As dents

Body gone, only the skeleton of the snow is left:

The same snow that covered all around

Has lost its substance to the earthy mound

But dull white bones still haunt Spring's heft

As wraiths

Read and leave comments (0)

For Gwen, Anne and Eryl

In that happy heady grass-green Spring of my years

A time of lambent lamb slow lamb full days around a whited cottage

Lent us space and ease beneath the sun long sky

Golden glorious hours together in a single thought

With close chicken scrape and distant herd

When the swallows dipped to the fly buzz

When the kite climbed to a gliding speck

     ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Have you seen her eyes?

Like searching grass stains

Reaching, reaching up the bark

Of her rough touch, rough hands.

Legs like hay, the hairs like needles,

Could lose thoughts in them, do you understand?

Oh, have you seen her eyes?!

Like dancing lily pads,

I once tried to catch them in the lake.

Silly mistake, oh big mistake

Because she can be a swamp,

Her pull like...

Read and leave comments (3)

Flat chimes ring out,

As hammers beat gainst metal forged in mankind’s heat,

Singing village tunes over river and hill,

As sunlight beams burn where mist lingers still.

The call rings out from hamlet village and town,

We are here, know us by this resound,

Like feral packs at bay sounding out,

The familial call of belonging-metal signals about.

Then the bell dance ...

Read and leave comments (0)

“But it’s not my fault”,

cried the mouse in dismay,

“I though I knew where I was

but appear to have lost my way”

Sat at the foot of my bed

with his hands under his head,

he tried through his tears

to relate what is here.

                  *

I set out early this morn

after nibbling on some corn

for my breakfast, on the cob is best.

I was raring to ...

Read and leave comments (0)

In Keswick I Walked Tall

I walked the streets of Heywood

In my paper-round years,

I walked and walked, mimicked the dogs

That snarled at the letter box,

But none of it was my choice.

My Siddal Moor Schooling was

An escape from Sutherland

Where the boys and the girls from

The council estate,

Snarled at their world of a

One by one clic...

Read and leave comments (2)