Light seeps through cracked lashes.

The new day’s tide sweeps a winter beach,

debris left on rippled sand

forms a room of furniture

in a head weighed with questions.

Out of frozen vaults of memory,

a canvas dragged into the morning sun

thaws slowly, mixed colour through frost

leaching out in blurred patches

on old bones in a strange bed.

Who owns these sho...

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Swaddled and happy,

I drown in my aunty’s best coat;

here on mottled kodak paper,

monochrome fun in a breeze block back yard,

swimming through sixties patchouli oil,

an eight year old ginger face

grinning back through time and fake fur,

hem brushing scuffed Clarks T Bar sandals,

heavy raglan sleeves pulled high

over skinny, freckled arms,

all worries shelved for...

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In search of yew in Borrowdale

that shared the sun with Judas,

I walk a rutted path,

aware of twinges, snares, rocks,

carrying your paints and easel

along with this bowl of words,

no longer fit for consumption,

mold festering in knots

from sour touching fruit within.

And if these words were berries,

gardeners would stand disappointed

at the canker in the bark...

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In expensive shoes,

he negotiated life in the third person;

toes swathed in top quality calfskin,

safe from random shit and shards,

where neither grass nor paved path

could sully his soft arches and soles.

He wore fine suits;

an actor avoiding the fourth wall,

costumed and painted with lines learnt,

senses fenced off with silk and cashmere,

any truthful light blo...

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In the wreckage of a house clearance,

a face distorts in a fractured glass eye.

Painted on gesso and northern white pine,

old acrylic eyelashes flash a recognition.

Stippled like a stormy summer,

worn and battered flanks shiver in the dust.

A torn rosette from a forgotten fete

hangs by a mane, shabby and faded.

Familiar sounds echo in the room:

the rhythmic sq...

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The shed was an apex all-wood

home-built construction,

erected that furnace of a summer

when we burnt in the shade

and our feet turned to leather,

a backdrop of screaming swifts

swooping like mad dot banshees

in the forget me not blue.

We stood back and admired

the woody quality of its sturdiness,

overlooked the imperfections;

worth the blisters and sweari...

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Remote in a Cumbrian village,

removed and adrift as instructed,

I have become a modern Major Tom,

floating with the tins and toilet rolls,

bouncing off the ceiling, walls and floor.

Behind glass, I message Planet Earth,

well placed for views in virtual space,

sitting in a semi, playing spot the Herdwick,

clapping frontline health service warriors

and other admirable...

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Dandelion Sun (opening poem from Fledge published by Maytree Press July 31st 2020)

A child’s sun finds a dream in young eyes.

In blinks of dandelion eclipses,

refracted light reflects on retinas

holding warmth in ragged leaves

below a flower standing up and out.

Ryegrass and foxtail for company,

a golden head of petals,

swaying and slight,

is there and gone and...

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