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. ...

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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

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‘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...

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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

...

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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 ...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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