Sometimes she got impatient, angry.

The girl that came in was late, or different

today and didn’t know where things lived.

In there, she would say, next to the fridge.

She’d want to do it herself, but it took

five minutes just to stand up, get her balance.

Simple tasks became impossible;

pulling the top off the tea caddy,

carry a drink without spilling.

S...

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I fed her sixties pop with her porridge;

seventies rock with roast potatoes

and she thrived on it.

Prog rock was only a passing phase,

but Britpop grabbed her, took me

out of my comfort zone.

The Christmas keyboard held her for a while,

surpassed my faltering Chopsticks, but then

she outgrew the toy.

A proper organ took her to music school

where she hea...

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Glance at the clock as the movie ends.

Time for a drink, but not too much,

or you’ll be up all night.

Open up kindle, pick up where you left off,

read a couple of chapters.

Waken the laptop, check email, Facebook,

reply and comment.

Lock doors and windows,

switch off lights, carry out

bedtime ablutions.

Get into bed, punch

pillow into shape,

set the alarm a...

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When day is done, perhaps I’ll sleep

Without the need for counting sheep,

and Lethe’s flow will drown my dreams.

The nightmares of nocturnal screams

all gone, although the price be steep.

If Thanatos decides to keep

me in his grasp, then do not weep,

for I’ll be done with such extremes

when day is done.

Across the Styx I’ll softly creep,

where you won’t hear...

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Trees stark,

tall in the park;

scrabbling limbs reach up to the dark.

Winter day,

children play;

running and shrieking, oblivious prey.

Shrouded eyes

fantasise,

ever aware of terrible prize.

Quiet word,

no-one heard;

straggler split from clamouring herd.

Raised shout,

searching out,

recrimination all about.

Vacant stare,

deep...

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Some days I watch you walking down the street

and I must pause a moment as you pass

to still my heart and stay rebellious feet

from following, but I must not alas.

Your golden hair, I know it, every strand;

those laughing eyes of blue that shine with mirth.

The music of your voice has me unmanned,

believing you an angel come to earth.

And yet I know it’s right that you shou...

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A day to watch the mizzle ‘cross the bay

that masks the heathered hills in swirling grey,

and swallows the horizon in its sigh

where even hungry gulls refuse to fly,

and seek their sheltered spots to hide away.

Inside we wait until the gloom will pass,

watch burning turf reflecting in the glass,

and in that warm reflection reminisce,

relive those golden summers of the ...

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‘Twas early in the seventies my story came about,

a tale about a sorry trail of woe.

The airline was at fault for it, of that there is no doubt,

although they tried to say it wasn’t so.

First time I’d ever flown and then they bumped me from the flight,

decided I must take a different route;

not Leeds my destination, but for Liverpool that night,

and stop off at the Isle o...

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We’ve been living in this townland

for a hundred years or more,

and my father’s in the churchyard

like his fathers gone before;

but there’s black rot on the praties,

and the bailiff’s at the door,

so the young men are all leaving

and we’ll see them never more.

Now there’s black rot on the praties,

and the bailiff’s at the door

for the countryside is starving,

...

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Crowds clustered at the embarkation point,

eager now to find their cabins for the trip.

Some few I recognised, having seen them here

over the last few days. Others, unknown to me,

arrived in the final hours before departure.

Security was pernickety, as you would expect,

fingerprints and retinal scans keeping the queue

to a steady trickle. Only the chosen few permitted

...

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A fleeting thought runs through my head

and is as quickly cast aside

because of something you had said,

that common wisdom then denied.

But then I saw a grain of truth

within those words, despite your youth.

Out of the mouths of babes they say

comes insight born beyond their years;

on such a revelation may

philosophers build new careers,

when concepts long believ...

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The first day of Lent is the day we lament

the Tuesday that’s just gone before,

when we’re all content to bask in the scent

of pancakes that we all adore.

A beautiful taste so that none go to waste,

we fight to be first in the queue

and stand there straight-faced demanding post-haste

that I need the next more than you.

I much prefer sweet but might well overeat

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My memories are fading every day;

I sometimes speculate how long they’ll last.

Will they endure until I’m old and grey,

or dwindle till I just forget the past?

I recollect my youth, or most of it,

and revel in the highs, eschew the lows,

but even now I fear, I must admit,

there are some gaps; you all know how that goes.

I try to fill the holes in, bridge the breac...

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How many times can a man tell a lie

before we lose sight of the truth?

How can we see him and still not deny

he’s simply too long in the tooth?

And how many years must we stand here and cry

because there’s no hope for our youth?

The whole situation’s a mystery to me

it’s all just a mystery to me.

How many people across this fair land

are really so wilfully blin...

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Springy heather spreads across the land

masking the mazy web of sheep tracks,

so we are forced to forge our own tracks,

skirting pockets of scree and peaty patches.

At times we have to go back, seeking patches

of dry, stable footing in order to progress,

inching ever upwards, making slow progress

towards the razorback path joining the twin peaks.

We reach the top,...

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The far horizon swathed in red

has bid the dying sun to bed

as she slips slowly out of sight,

and daylight fades to welcome night.

I see this evening in my head,

the far horizon swathed in red,

where wavelets wash that dark'ning sand

that calls to mind a distant land.

A fleeting thought begins to gleam,

as if in some forgotten dream;

the far horizon swathed ...

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I cannot believe the tenacity

of someone who has this capacity

to push with self-righteous pugnacity

a programme so filled with mendacity.

And if you mistrust his veracity,

or query his claim to sagacity,

he’ll question in turn your audacity,

and say that you lack perspicacity.

He’ll shout you down with his loquacity,

attacking you with such voracity,

and wo...

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It’s a day for the bog, said the farmer,

so we hitched battered trailer to tractor

and assembled the few able bodies.

He drove, of course, with two of us

in the bed of the trailer, and two

perched on a plank between mudguards.

We arrived through layered mist hanging,

waiting for the day’s warmth to melt it away,

and trudged up into the diggings.

A multitud...

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In a chat with my long-time best mate

Who’d a penchant for putting on weight

I confided I felt

That he could be quite svelte

If he ate from a much smaller plate

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Far, far away beneath a southern sky

where unfamiliar stars shimmered on high

and Uluru loomed through the pale moonlight

Anangu tribesmen danced for our delight.

They danced a tale of how they’d live and die

far, far away beneath a southern sky

their history not based on written word

but verbally so everybody heard

a chronicle of sixty thousand years,

survived...

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W

We

had

a tree

that lived

in our garden

for most of the

year. And when it

was time, my Dad dug

it up carefully, so as not

to damage the fragile roots.

He ceremoniously set it in a big

clay pot, ballasted with stones and

packed round with soil, and placed it in

a sort of giant terracotta saucer, to catch the

water, he said, so it would stay alive for ne...

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The sound of Christmas is the ringing of the tills,

and weeping as you wave goodbye to dollar bills.

You’ll see last-minute shoppers queueing in the streets,

shopkeepers rubbing hands around the balance sheets.

Then family assemble for a massive feast,

till visibly you see their waistlines have increased,

proceed to drown it with a plethora of booze,

then say if not for k...

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Sleep.

No dreams.

Peaceful night,

without terrors

to twist the bedsheets.

Monsters beneath the bed

consigned to oblivion.

A new-found tranquility reigns

in the stillness of blissful slumber.

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Unprecedented storms sweep across the ill-prepared land. Hastily named gales take buildings in their grasp, tossing pieces aside like so much litter. Purpling skies release a deluge, tormenting the terrain with newly formed rivers and bursting banks. Humans cower in abject trepidation in the shadow of nature’s ire, payback for the insults to her creation.

torrential downpour

inunda...

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Her dark green eyes till now unseen,

expressively they shine pristine

like shamrocks from the Emerald Isle,

and never fail to make me smile,

her dark green eyes.

She greets me with a gentle mien

and eyes so clear and ever keen,

so pure that nothing could defile

her dark green eyes.

Sometimes they’re clouded, then serene,

or smoulder with a certain sheen

t...

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I will not wear the baggy trousers of old age.

I refuse to accept the rumpled seat and saggy knees.

Nor will I adopt the windcheater jacket

with its collar-rolled hood

to mask the slouch of advancing years.

And the mirror-shined lace-up shoes

will remain on the High Street shelf.

For me, it will be jeans,

tee shirts and trainers,

even at the withering onset of winte...

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Wavelets slither over a wet shore

warmed in the heat of day, the faint

popping of bursting effervescence

barely heard. Toes squidge in it, sinking

with the flow of successive swirls of tide.

Stepping forward releases a schlurp, leaves

puddled footprints that wash away

in moments, leaving no trace of my passing.

Water ripples round my ankles, tickling,

enticing me fu...

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The summer’s almost gone, already missed,

and waking in her place the autumn grieves

her sister, though they cannot coexist

where russet and burnt ochre bleed the leaves.

Yet in their rigid, regimented ranks,

a growing hesitation brings unease;

whose turn is next they ask, as nature’s pranks

reveal the winter sun and summer freeze.

The seasons’ schedule raises suc...

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At midnight clear I hear the bean sí cry

then echoed as the tocsin tolls its knell,

and know her weary spirit's set to fly.

At midnight clear I hear the bean sí cry,

already mourning one whose time is nigh

and bound for heaven, leaving me in hell.

At midnight clear I hear the bean sí cry

then echoed as the tocsin tolls its knell.

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Football after school became

a game within a game. Wait

until the man goes for his tea

then invade his hockey pitch.

No jackets for goalposts here,

real wood, sometimes even nets,

limed markings,  tonsured grass

without bare patches.

Teams chosen, slowcoach Steve

picked last, and off we go.

Refereed by consensus. Corners,

free kicks, won by loudest shout.

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Have you ever found an author that you really, really get,

who can tell a story like it should be told,

with such convoluted plots that drive you round the bend, and yet

you’re on tenterhooks to see the tale unfold.

There are times you think you know exactly what will happen next,

but then suddenly it takes another twist,

when events take a direction that can leave you quite...

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When I awoke, my face was wet with tears.

It was a dream I dreamt, a reverie,

a memory that lingers through the years,

some distant echo of a younger me.

That summer when you came and took my hand

to hold through sunlit days and ceilidh nights,

with moonlit walks across the rippled sand

that stirred our blood to reach such starry heights.

A simpler time of youth a...

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When melancholy takes me I take refuge in the blues,

to soothe the aches that break me when I hear some heavy news,

‘cause when my heart is hurting I can find no better cure

than music for diverting me until I feel secure.

I sublimate my weeping to the sound of a guitar,

whose wailing tones are keeping my emotions where they are,

with the volume past eleven so it echoes thro...

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With harvest safely gathered in

this Hallows Eve, the dead will rise

to haunt the homes of kith and kin

with echoes of the bean sí’s cries.

Then fearful folk will all withdraw,

and leave outside their sacred gift,

remaining safe from tooth and claw

of spectral shades who cross the rift.

Deep in the throes of Samhain’s night,

when terror pounds the panicked brea...

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The words you wove woke something inside me,

and in the wakening I found a thread of hope

that had me weaving yarns of aspiration.

But the weft turned out to be warped

and the fabric wrapped in a web of lies.

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Soft summer dusk now gently fades;

as evenings wither and decay,

and nights grow longer every day.

As starlings leave their golden glades,

to fly and find a warmer clime

and through the winter bide their time.

No more we’ll hear their serenades,

for they will not return to sing

until the heady days of spring.

And curling leaves in autumn shades

of yello...

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Ring out those solstice bells to mark the fading

of autumn’s dying embers into darkness,

where barren branches cease their masquerading,

to file forsaken in their silent starkness.

Where once were saplings, now tall trees stand sentry

to guard the wooded vale’s majestic fastness.

And so they spend their days, these forest gentry,

enduring winter’s cheerless months of...

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With war machines unleashed the lands run red,

awash with all the blood of innocents,

while we quail at the counting of the dead,

a toll that from far off makes little sense.

So which is right, and which is wrong? Who knows.

The winner’s he who wields the bigger guns,

and while it lasts the body count just grows,

computed not in numbers but in tonnes.

As open-mouthed we wat...

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Lingering light of summer gently fades.

Evenings wither into deepening dusk

and lengthening nights grow chill.

Swallows start to leave the gossiping glades

for warmer climes, to winter as they must,

and birdsong begins to still.

Then all too soon the summer’s green cascades

begin to turn to shades of brown and rust,

gently down from trees to spill.

So once...

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The rollers roll and the breakers break

as the storm sweeps unforeseen,

and the waters boil and the clouds roil

but the moon looks down serene.

All the ships that creep across the deep

and even the submarine

take closer haul through savage squall

but the moon looks down serene.

Though winds may blow and waves may grow

as the tempest supervenes,

sailors hold ...

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These trees that throughout summer gave us shade,

protecting us from global warming’s sun,

begin to lose their leaves, and every glade

is carpeted in ochre, red and dun.

Then scrunching down once-sheltered forest trails

amidst the foetid fragrance of decay,

a chill autumnal flurry soon assails

our senses with its sibyllic display.

And so, with season’s ending now ...

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Beyond the mountain pass, past scattered rocks

the sea appears; a familiar shimmer of blue

flecked with transient wisps of white.

Along squigglous roads anticipation builds,

and my destination plays peekaboo between

wind-warped trees and sheep-shorn fields.

I park at the sea wall, disembark into the ozone

aroma of Atlantic waves mingled with turf smoke;

ageless ye...

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The menace of midges, no-see-ums or gnats,

designed just to drive you distractedly bats;

they swarm by the lake for their airborne attacks

on humans provided as portable snacks

A cloud on the water both morning and night,

evolved into something that surely ain’t right.

I think Mother Nature has made a mistake;

why can’t she admit it and give us a break?

What good ...

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Silver grey swirls soak us, blind us,

with false hopes of brightness barely

breaking through. The tantalising

threat of sun seduces, then forsakes,

as the mist’s morning fingers extend

tendrils, strangle the glimmer of day.

Ethereal voices murmur through the hush

in muted exchange too faint to decipher,

muffled by the stifled swoosh of wavelets

whispering across an ...

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The lazy Lagan lingers through the fields of County Down,

where it slithers through Dromara and Dromore;

from the foothills of Slieve Croob through the countryside and towns,

and meandering through Belfast to the shore.

It’s not like the Niagara with its thunderous waterfalls,

nor the Nile that flows for many thousand miles.

It’s a sleepy little river, and yet to me it calls...

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How do you like your egg she said;

beside another one I cried.

With bread that’s sliced and nicely fried,

and some baked beans, take that as read.

Some bacon then, I thought aloud,

a crispy rasher, maybe two,

and mushrooms? Possibly a few,

just sautéed lightly, I avowed.

To wash it down? Some English tea,

nectar of the breakfast table;

I’ll drink as much as ...

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I feel a coolness in the air.

Bright sun still greets the dawn,

birds will trill their greeting to the day,

and yet I sense a change of mood;

the restless vacillation of a verdict

not quite agreed, but scales begin to tip.

Blackberries cluster, purple knots

of succulence, awaiting harvest.

Conkers fall from laden chestnut trees.

Breezes flutter branches d...

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Dreams are in the embers,

in shimmering red heat;

the subtle settling of ashes

reinforces the illusion of movement.

Unfocussed eyes

fix on flickering flames,

the acrid tang of burning turf

warms my weariness,

wraps around me

like a comfort blanket,

faded memories safely swaddled

in the reassuring glow.

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The ides of March and Julius Caesar

turned out to be a luckless geezer.

His pals had planned a sneak attack

and smiling, stabbed him in the back.

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A face of creased hickory

and black hair, like a wire-wool afro,

he waited in the clearing

where Uluru cast its ancient shadow.

As we sat down, he began to talk.

He spoke of his tribe, the Anangu,

and how they’d lived in the area and beyond

for countless years;

not recorded in books,

but by verbal tradition.

He spoke of the hardships

of daily survival,

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