Poems
Sea Glass
This weathered jewel began as normal shards
of shattered glass, but given enough time
and natural persistence from the seaboards,
that sharp, translucent, brittle crystalline
material, just so much composite sand, is ground
from broken bottles or even distant shipwrecks
until sharp edges become smoothed and round.
This cocktail of colour, found among the rocks, Continue reading “Sea Glass”
Ariadne
It was amazing luck, to get that clue.
Threading between the darkened outer rooms
he sought escape, the bull’s head in his arms.
The bass was thumping as the blood within.
She, grateful for assistance, guided him
outwards, his half-drunk feet still holding true.
They bounced it past the guards. So they were free:
(not Crete but Mykonos) though the summer’s heat
and adrenalin made the whole street a haze. Continue reading “Ariadne”
The Rough Guide to Croatia
There’s a black sphinx in the city of Split
from Diocletian’s time. Her granite face
has watched the world turn for more than three millennia
(her eleven siblings were all beheaded),
her Egyptian cradle now a thing of the past. Continue reading “The Rough Guide to Croatia”
Key Phrases
As one door opens, another closes. Bad things
come to those who wait. Time hales all wounds.
The world’s our oyster, sickly, most
of it unpalatable, waste.
He was the apple of her eye, rotten to the core;
she a peach, a stone for a heart. A real dead wire. Continue reading “Key Phrases”
Fell
The inhabitants of Samarah saw the tower on fire
and Carathis and Vathek sacrificed them. Light
guided them to where no fire was found.
Ivory’s great but is no match for steel.
Stone, even better. Blow the tower down.
Anthony Royal designed Canary Wharf. Continue reading “Fell”
The Cashpoint
Transactions common passing strange.
Such buttons pressed may yield so much.
Coterminal a gift exchange.
Reciprocal presents as such.
Such buttons pressed may yield so much, Continue reading “The Cashpoint”
London is the Capital of Great Britain
To get inside you have to climb the ladder.
The rungs, a greasy pole; your hands are sore.
A back window will suffice if there’s no other,
a loophole makes a door a portiere.
For now, from wall to wall you take your steps:
a case of no belongings, stashed under the bed
and ready to begin the whole rabid
rat race at a hat’s drop, when the music stops. Continue reading “London is the Capital of Great Britain”
Carthage
Dismissed as propaganda, it was true
that Carthaginians sacrificed the youth
to please and mollify the gods they knew,
but most did not believe it true, because
they did not want to think our ancestors
capable of such atrocities. Continue reading “Carthage”
The Mediums
It took a week for us to stop hearing the voices.
Although they had been our constant companions
for years by then, a steady stream of chatter,
it reached the point where they became unbearable.
Each message had become a death to us. Just a little
to start with, soft like the twitter of birds,
not too intrusive perhaps, but then more insistent
by the day, slowly overwhelming, until
our own voices, thoughts, were lost to theirs.
Eventually, it was us or them. They became Continue reading “The Mediums”
Earth Summit
All gifts are off: for this stolen spark of power
the world rebelled and asked for something back.
He cheated. Man enjoyed playing with fire
too much, thought little of him on his rock,
chained and consumed. The air grew hot and dark. Continue reading “Earth Summit”
