The Esk Valley line
Nobbut a beck to begin with.
The Esk escorted by daffodils
beside both banks, and a train
that escaped Beeching’s
scattergun. Skirts
the moorland’s northern edge,
past lambs and fields
festooned with pheasants.
Scurries over boulders,
relaxes and widens
as we approach the sea,
is celebrated by a magnificent,
redundant viaduct,
a memorial to the line
...Saturday 12th April 2025 12:45 pm
Goodbye, America
An old railroad loco
by the side of a lake
A shocked motel clerk
greets us with the words:
Sadat is dead!
Chocolate chip pancake
late breakfast.
I almost throw up.
Disused Olympics
ski slope. Snow at the top
of Mount Washington.
Hard porn on the motel TV
in Palisades Park, New Jersey.
Bumper to bumper
at night
empty when we r...
Friday 21st March 2025 11:05 pm
Niagara
Our one and only trip to America
in the Fall, almost forty-five
years ago. Rhode Island, Cape Cod,
Vermont, New Hampshire, Boston
... Niagara.
We drove through Buffalo
towards the falls, passing gaudy
'honeymoon hotels' boasting
the size of their water-beds.
The view from the US side
was impressive, yes, the little
tourist boat almost under
the cascade...
Friday 14th March 2025 8:27 pm
Alphabet, oops!
The AA, once first in the alphabet,
takes ages to answer distress calls.
When someone says AI
I say Ayee!
like a wounded Native American
in a curdled Sixties comic.
Now Microsoft is offering
to help me put words together.
I'm analogue, not digital,
and aware I'm being phased out.
Friday 17th January 2025 7:59 am
A short summer
They were refugees from the Costa,
escaping searing daytime heat
and wakeful night sweats
for Northumberland’s short summer.
Beaches that hardly seem crowded
even when the tide is in.
Shrieks of sandcastle excitement
amid the northern wind.
Thirsty hydrangeas soaking up the rain,
flagging hostas reprieved. Weather
as it used to be, while the south swelters. ...
Friday 23rd August 2024 8:03 am
The Poisoned Garden
Rhubarb, laburnum,
rhododendron, juniper,
pulmonaria, digitalis,
nicotinia, periwinkle,
cannabis, aconitum,
salvia, laurel, hemlock,
rosemary, farage.
With acknowledgements to
The Poison Garden at Alnwick Gardens in Northumberland
Monday 5th August 2024 7:59 am
Moving like Jagger
‘Mick Jagger has a six-year-old. He’s 80.’
Conversation between two older women overheard on a train
Embarrassing, enduring logo. Those lips.
Jumping Jack Flash, no ordinary wrinklie,
sired another offspring in his seventies,
still manages to shake those hips.
Faux-rebel with a knowing grin.
Only a nineteen-sixties serum
explains so many honky-tonk women.
Rul...
Sunday 26th May 2024 10:03 am
Puffins at Coquet Island
Partygoers reluctant to depart.
Last stragglers of the colony line
the turf below the lighthouse.
The engine’s cut; August
wind chills faces. Some still
clump in, puttering outboard
motors frantically clattering
over us and terns on the rocks.
Wintering on the ocean,
returning with sand eel cargos.
The chicks spend years at sea.
What makes us think of them
...
Sunday 21st April 2024 7:50 am
The ferry waits
Like a fought-over bed, the ancient rock
tumbles, crumbles to the shore.
The ferry waits to leave the dock.
Spinning, wind-whipped, on the loch,
struggling against nature in the raw.
Like a fought-over bed, the ancient rock.
The waves heap up, a sudden shock.
Forget for once the thoughts that gnaw.
The ferry waits to leave the dock.
Did you count me lost as you eyed the clock?
Did ...
Thursday 4th April 2024 8:26 am
A foreign wood
The empire called for more men, and they came.
Shipped from sub-continent
to western front,
Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, East Africa,
largest volunteer army in the world.
They weren’t ready for the cold;
couldn’t understand new officers
when theirs were slain.
Some wounded, shipped to England,
died and were buried
in a corner of a foreign wood
with Muslim honours...
Sunday 10th March 2024 8:05 pm
The 'rules' of modern poetry
Tell it slant, don't tell it straight.
Don't tell it at all. Show me.
Lyrical is ok, up to a point.
Don't overload with details.
Whoa! Hold it right there.
This is veering towards
the anecdotal,
the confessional,
the conversational,
and, Heaven forbid,
the sentimental.
I find it easier to get obscure
poems published, than ones
where the mea...
Sunday 10th March 2024 4:15 pm
The computer said 'No'
for the many hard-working and innocent
Post Office operators wrongly accused and
defrauded by their employer. Some were jailed,
and four took their own lives
The best comedy lines are funny
because they resonate with truth.
Funny in a mirthless kind of way.
Some Post Office manager
got a huge bonus for installing
a computer system that didn’t work.
They coul...
Sunday 7th January 2024 7:45 pm
Picking sides
Snow on ground for several days.
I’m taken back to sixty-three,
when it didn’t melt for months.
No central heating, frost on
inside windows. You’ve heard
the stories. Eventually the council
tried to clear the streets.
Collected as much snow
and ice as they could,
piled it high in a nearby
car park. A mountain range
for us to play and fight in.
...
Monday 4th December 2023 10:20 am
A Morpeth Christmas
The pub car park
like an ice rink.
But the Christmas lights!
Even the bottom end
of Morpeth over
the muddy Wansbeck
is transformed;
the Telford bridge
dazzles the motorist.
Our grandchild
banged on the window
when she saw
her first snow.
Her eyes will widen
once more
when she spies this.
Friday 1st December 2023 7:24 pm
Oswald and Chapman
Late November,
early December.
The blood-spattered dress.
The shattered lenses.
Across the years
same shock and tears.
Rifle skills into practice.
Imagine such riches.
The Communist, the Christian:
two fame-jealous hitmen.
Wednesday 22nd November 2023 8:14 am
George Orwell, where art thou?
The rain came from
the wrong direction.
That figures.
Compassion is prohibited.
It’s a hate march
if they don’t like
what you’re saying.
The pantomime villains
who would prosecute
King Wenceslas
and the poor man
gathering winter fuel.
From 'snowflake'
to 'extremist'
in just a few years.
Saturday 4th November 2023 8:50 am
The beast of war
What use is poetry in time of war?
Insular England mourned
a much-loved tree felled
with chainsaw by barbarians
in dead of night. A local
politician compared it
to the death of Kennedy.
Meanwhile Russia continued
to bomb Ukraine, now
almost forgotten
amid daily massacres
in Israel and Palestine.
Evil resumed, three eyes
for one. Yet this feels different.
...Sunday 29th October 2023 7:14 pm
Farewell, Sir Bobby
Thunderous shooting that transcended his era.
Maybe you have to be a certain age.
When they announced it during the match
the crowd of six hundred
barely reacted. No gasps or murmurs.
My son shrugged, apologetic.
I was thirteen in 1966, watching every game
I could on TV, filling in the wall charts.
Never thought we could beat Eusebio’s Portugal,
the team of the tournament. But two goals
...
Sunday 22nd October 2023 12:00 am
Great North Run, 2023
They poured out of Haymarket Metro,
streamed up the hill through
the university towards the Start.
How they cheered Sir Mo Farah
warming up, in ominous, oppressive
heat. Mo the spirit
of the London Olympics over
a decade ago, when we celebrated
our country, the Queen descended
with James Bond from a helicopter,
the last time we felt good about ourselves.
The starti...
Monday 11th September 2023 2:38 pm
Unplaced at the Simonside Country Fair
I thought I had a fighting chance. A local poem
about a long-lost railway line. But I forgot
that for most folk, especially in Northumberland,
a poem must rhyme. There were some
accidental rhymes there, but not enough, it seems.
Unplaced in a field of six. I even included
some dialect words, but maybe in the wrong order.
I guess they somehow spotted I was a southerner.
...Monday 14th August 2023 1:04 pm
The Flowerpot Men
We were born in the same year
at the dawn of the brave new Elizabethan era.
Men-children fussed over by Little Weed,
often collapsing at their own jokes,
cackling, pots rattling, guffawing.
The strange figure with squeaky voice
they occasionally met in the wood gave
me nightmares. Growing older
we smirked at the druggy connotations.
I saw them as dazed, strung-out...
Tuesday 8th August 2023 8:41 am
Unhappy landings
Some days he scours the Channel in his boat,
binoculars scanning for hapless migrants
in leaking dinghies; or sits atop
Dover’s white cliffs, keeping sentry
on Britain’s behalf; or barges into
budget hotels, hunting down those
who have evaded his dragnet;
or wipes away the occasional
milkshake, like seagull poo, that has
landed as if from the sky on his jacket.
B...
Tuesday 25th July 2023 10:28 am
Extra time
I think about Shankly's legendary words,
which he may not even have said:
Some people think football a matter
of life and death. It's more important than that
as I lie on the slab, feeling like a stiff
about to be dissected in a TV police thriller,
and hear the orderlies bustling about
preparing for my procedure
and talking about whether they'll watch
the first Euros ...
Wednesday 5th July 2023 11:37 am
Clacton
i.m Jox Cox MP
where my brother found a sodden fiver
beside a breakwater and my mother
dried it, spent it on a pair of jeans
for each of us. Riches in those days.
Sealed with A Kiss, Poetry in Motion,
It Might As Well Rain until September
on the jukebox. The train from
Liverpool Street seemed to go on for ever.
Now driving from Clacton through Frinton
to Wa...
Friday 23rd June 2023 9:16 am
It's not his fault
that he has fat fingers that mean
someone has to squeeze
his toothpaste, so they say.
That he gets enraged when he
has to sign things, and pens leak.
He means well. It’s not his fault
someone had the bright idea
that while we are watching
his coronation we should leap
from our sofas and swear homage.
It probably wasn’t his wheeze.
It’s not his fault tha...
Tuesday 2nd May 2023 10:12 am
Barter Books, Alnwick
Dozens of trains went back and forth daily
to and from the junction in its heyday.
Fifty-five years ago, the last service.
The terminus building still stands,
grand, too grand for just a branch,
but maybe not too high and mighty
for royalty visiting a duke of Northumberland.
Now far more browsers than ever waited
on the platforms throng the old parcels
and waiting r...
Tuesday 28th March 2023 6:31 am
Song of the Ofsted Inspectors
No point in crying, you know why we’re here.
Saw the league tables, smelled blood, descended.
You’re on our list; we can wreck your career.
Don’t try to fool us; we’ve been heads, too.
Educating the underclass? A thankless task.
We got out in time, saw which way the wind blew.
Up all night, checking figures? No matter.
We make facts fit, the one thing we’re good at.
...Saturday 18th March 2023 9:43 am
Black gold
Their bungalow seemed
to grow out of the ground.
The garden was big enough
to lose himself in.
While grandchildren marched
importantly in and out of sheds,
Dad took me on a tour of his empire
that terminated at the compost bins.
Ran leaf mould through his fingers,
exulting at what he’d created,
the miracle of degradation,
black gold. It’s life that matter...
Sunday 12th March 2023 9:42 am
No, Minister! or Whatever happened to the BBC?
The Goons, Bill and Ben,
Hancock’s Half-Hour,
Steptoe & Son,
That Was The Week That Was,
Doctor Who, Blue Peter,
Play For Today, Match of the Day,
Till Death Do Us Part,
Monty Python, Dad’s Army,
Whatever Happened
To The Likely Lads,
Fawlty Towers,
Not The Nine O’Clock News,
Boys From the Black Stuff,
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet,
Yes, Minister, Blackadder,
Det...
Friday 10th March 2023 5:53 pm
The viaduct
Why was it built?
The line had to take
a one hundred and eighty
degree turn to evade
the Duke of Northumberland’s
estate. The price:
a tunnel, and a viaduct
crossing the Edlingham Burn.
Blast those shooting parties!
No matter: the navvies
set to work. The curve adds
to its Grade II listed beauty.
It appears much shorter
than from below
and closed...
Saturday 11th February 2023 4:53 pm
The wind in the dark
I go to my room for an afternoon nap,
leave the curtains open
to watch the last of the day.
Thirty minutes later the lights
of the stone cottages are on.
The wind along Longframlington's
ridge is blowing hard, which
gives me comfort, wrapped in warmth
inside, even when it howls a little.
Sometimes it's a sea battle,
guns thundering. A mile or two
...Friday 30th December 2022 9:15 pm
Watching England with Carol Ann Duffy
It seems like a dream now:
the 1-4 scoreline;
Lampard’s goal that never was;
watching the game with Carol Ann Duffy.
She turned up amid the half-time gloom
in a Ludlow pub, asked if it was ok
to sit near the TV. I made some crack
about political-historical contexts
and Nazi fugitives, and why
Uruguayan officials favour Germans.
She half-smiled: that’s when I gues...
Friday 2nd December 2022 8:30 am
Lest They Forget
A village Remembrance service.
The same old hymns,
and pacifist sentiment.
Sun streams through
the memorial hall window
so that I can hardly see.
And when we come
to those words
and the bugle plays
and tears are wiped away
that same sun
has gone down, disappeared.
Why did we fight? Maybe
just to defend the British
belief in fair play, in sticking
t...
Monday 14th November 2022 9:53 am
North
The Angel almost
ambushed us.
The trees turn
more beautiful
with every mile.
Tyne at low tide.
Network of bridges,
trains crossing.
Four in the morning.
Crescent moon
in dark sky. The silence.
Churchyard gravestones
look like people
in camera's flashlight.
The blinking of the internet.
Every day,
a new start.
I...
Saturday 29th October 2022 7:32 am
The way forward
We’re not there yet
but already some details
are etched in the map:
a haunted Roman road
beyond the wall,
leading to the border,
known as
the Devil’s Causeway,
traces of old railways,
a ruined priory,
a nearby river.
Why are you going so far?
some said. Family called us.
A seed was planted.
Time to begin walking again.
Have I waited nearly
all m...
Friday 7th October 2022 11:22 am
'The Daleks take the Treasury'
Easy to spot them.
Another metallic voice in parliament.
Exterminate the economy!
Pound plunges, Britannia unhinged.
The Daleks take the Treasury.
Saturday 24th September 2022 7:59 am
The funeral
Massed ranks, protecting
phalanx. Precision.
The bagpipes, gun carriage,
martial yet mournful.
Abbey’s organ, choir.
On the streets, in crowds,
in front of TVs. Most things
stopped. Most of us were there.
Union flags along The Mall.
Whatever your colours
a moment in history.
For one day a nation
more or less in perfect step.
The Queen has died.
...Monday 19th September 2022 4:07 pm
From Reykjavik to Kyiv
Reykjavik, where Reagan
and Gorbachev almost agreed
to ban all nuclear weapons.
Gorbachev, an old man now,
maintains that this dream
is humanity’s only hope.
The shelling of civilians
is indiscriminate. The situation
has gone far beyond insults,
invective, rhetoric.
Forty years on
I’ll concede that avuncular
rightwinger Ronnie Reagan,
bete noire of...
Tuesday 30th August 2022 10:52 pm
The bard of Cymdonkin Drive
Caitlin said in a TV interview
he sometimes spent hours
in the writing shed, only
to emerge with one line
after all that work.
The radio voice portentous,
everyone’s idea of a poet.
Words that were musical, inspirational,
with no one quite sure
what exactly they meant.
A bard that pulled the birds
and drank like a fish. Why
did he get so pissed?
Wa...
Wednesday 24th August 2022 11:46 am
I wouldn't go down to the sea today
They crap on us
from a great height.
It's not symbolic
metaphorical, allegorical -
it's offishial. It's offal.
Farewell to the blue wall
along the south coast.
Hello, polio, and other diseases.
We don't have to follow
the rules any longer.
More in your face
than piled-up rubbish
in the 70s. Wake up, Britain,
and smell the ordure.
We're surr...
Friday 19th August 2022 10:59 am
Drought
On some nights
when pressure is low
we fear to revive
dying plants
lest supply runs out.
No new handouts.
We no longer know
what to do for the best.
All that still grows
are those that
strangle and exploit,
or send out thorns.
What will remain
of this garden
is brambles
and bindweed.
Even in this heat
we dread the cold to come.
...
Monday 15th August 2022 10:29 am
Homecoming
Always a song that tugged
at the heartstrings.
But over the years it took on
a melancholy, mournful note.
So many disappointments,
hands of God, penalty shoot-outs,
racist abuse on social media.
But that was then. That was the men.
Now, at the final whistle, they’re
playing our song, at Wembley!
The gods have smiled on us,
restored our faith. The longer
the...
Monday 1st August 2022 8:01 am
The road north
That tinderbox summer: underground fires’
subversive routes, breaking cover,
crackling heaths and pinewoods.
Blackened commons, smoke-cloaked motorway.
Sudden, meaningful quarrels; soon
you’d be heading north to university.
Fog-stalled autumn: drinks half-price
in freshers’ week, tempted by new flavours.
Down south I couldn’t start, awaited repairs.
Long, cross-coun...
Saturday 30th July 2022 8:25 am
Oh, Mr Porter
i.m Bernard Cribbins
That birthday scene
in The Railway Children
that always makes me cry.
Pride, dignity, modesty,
and a certain pig-headedness,
too. Cribbins embodied those
values in his portrayal of everyman
porter Perks. We should have
feared the worst news was coming
when he didn’t turn up in the sequel.
Other working-class traits?
The Hole in th...
Thursday 28th July 2022 9:56 am
Holiday jobs
Fruit picker road sweeper
Christmas mail sorter
office cleaner
road tax disc admin assistant.
I’ve listed my holiday jobs
in order of enjoyment.
Thought I’d do this because
at least one Tory PM candidate
has made hers a crucial part
of her CV, to try to persuade
us she’s an ordinary person
who once flipped burgers.
We aren’t fooled that easily!
...Tuesday 19th July 2022 8:57 am
1976!
We didn’t worry about climate change
back then. The temperature might have
hit the 90s for several days. But that
was Fahrenheit, not Centigrade.
I do remember being bitten
by swarms of maddened ladybirds.
It wasn’t the heat that bothered us,
but the lack of rain. Wildfires
smouldered for a month in woods
and on heaths on my drive to work,
traveling undergro...
Sunday 17th July 2022 8:20 am
A pride of Lionesses (and all the other teams)
Parade of the pony-tails.
No wrestling in the box;
getting up and getting on with it.
Football as it should be played.
Showing the men how to entertain,
putting them to shame.
The spirit of sport. Someone
should have a word with them.
All those young girls cheering goals,
singing Football’s Coming Home.
I’m not being leery - I hope -
but the game just go...
Saturday 16th July 2022 7:01 am
Watching England with Carol Ann Duffy
It seems like a dream now:
the 1-4 scoreline;
Lampard’s goal that never was;
watching the game with Carol Ann Duffy.
She turned up amid the half-time gloom
in a Ludlow pub, asked if it was ok
to sit near the TV. I made some crack
about political-historical contexts
and Nazi fugitives, and why
Uruguayan officials favour Germans.
She half-smiled: that’s when I gues...
Friday 15th July 2022 9:11 am
From Gorbachev to Johnson
Cornwall 2019
Church Cove. No through road.
Butterflies brush fingers along
the coastal path. Named after
Breton saint, the church of the storms
shelters in the dunes behind a rock;
the graveyard often fills with sand.
The information notes talk casually
of Arthur, Bedivere, Excalibur;
list wrecks along Gunwalloe’s coast,
not least the Portuguese t...
Sunday 10th July 2022 12:58 pm
This old heart
I Want to Hold Your Hand.
The music of our youth plays
as we 60-somethings –
and then some –
squat and lunge,
walk on the spot,
step forward, then back.
No arms above the shoulder
for the cardios.
I remember swiping
the demon fast bowler
for successive fours
before being clean-bowled.
A 400-yard relay
when no one overtook me.
The hat-trick
I s...
Wednesday 15th June 2022 8:56 am
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