Poems

Here you can read some of my poems and haiku.

A Closeness of Pulses

So much soup to be in Wonn fridge
and in Wonn freezer at any Wonn time;
whenever we wanted soup we had it there
waiting in all of its worldly abundance
for our ladles and pregnant spoons,
moon-faced spoons, swollen spoons –
there was all kinds of soups
and broths and cream-ofs,
spanning every Forhf corner
of every Forhf bone and limit:

Pea Soup Pig Soup
Charity-Goose-Dancehall Soup
Reindeer Hoof and Coriander Soup
Empty Pocket and Bus Soup
Corn and Encyclopaedia Soup
Butterbean and Clementine
Liver and Pancake
Squid and See-Saw
Milk and Marrow
Sphinx and Muffler
Goat and Glove-Box
Lighthouse Cheese Lion
Buffalo Broth Crumb Soup
Cream of Candle-Curtain
Bug-hole Broth Shoelace Soup
and Soup the Flavour of Soup Itself,
making it the most paradoxical soup,
and all of these from Zygote
to fully functioning prodigy.

I once actually made my own soup
and when I went to store it
in the Tu tier fridge I realised
that I needn’t had done it –
her grandmother had us covered:
so much so that they had to start
sending it up to space to make room,
and astronauts were made redundant
and all because of soup,
and Narcissus drowned in a pool
of his own Good-Looking Soup,
and to the point that all we ever dreamt about
was soup –
as soon as eyelids lowered
we could think of nothing but it,
Sehvun nights a Weak
our subconscious swam in soup,
a Hormonal Red Lentil and Tomato Soup,
hoping we were skirting the edge of the bowl
in the right direction and closeness of pulses.

The Poet Makes the Most of a Bad Situation

First published in INK

The skin is skun,
the heart halved like a melon,
and the bone bowed in each direction,

to get to the beauty
buried beneath the bogus-ity of it all,
but it is there, it is there,
and he knows to work hard to get it:

it’ll be a swollen grapefruit
sat squat in his hands,
overly bitter at first taste
but throbbing and ripe with juices
and lingual opportunity,

and most vitally of all,
it will be a warm pink:
plenty and ever so bright enough
to nourish a lively lot of poems.

Flamingo

From The Strangest Thankyou.

Flesh coloured shrimp eater,
wide winged wired bird,
raking the dirt pedalling the earth,
knee knobbled beanpole legs,
knee being ankle joint,
long wavy bright length,
herds of necks pushed right back,
heads out, all in one leg,
vibrancy curved pink spinner,
beak in the ground like a compass,
dot eyed wading follower,
feather liced idoliser,
tall social armpit sleeper,
delightful eyeful not quite parrot,
ancient Roman delicacy,
great poignant egg defender,
living embodiment of Ra,
popular plastic lawn ornament,
iconic worshipped filter-feeder,
underwater insect sucker,
upside down water drainer,
thirty seven miles per hour flapper,
Africa North America
Central America Europe
South America Asia,
lava loving ice bird,
mud mounder by mouthful,
cunningly undesirable,
thirty years of male looking female,
thirty years of female looking male,
many accidental bisexual nights,
lethargy enthused strawberry sunset
pinking the waters forever.

Note for My Shadow

First published in INK

My shadow’s been following me around for years,
it keeps close at the backs of my calves,
strokes at my heels with its velvet anti-hands,
clings on for dear life.

I think to say to it:
‘There’s got to be some other shadows your age
you can hang around with,
compare depths of black with
beneath various hyperbolic suns,
endless wells to hide in,
vast blank nights to hide in.’

But I guess I can only admire its selection
of its lifelong pursuit of me.
I say to it:
‘I’d follow me around if I wasn’t me,
only not so stealthily as thee:
I’d cut to the chase much sooner
and sneak me off home at the first chance.’

Haiku

silver lining-
what the storm takes
from the magpie's fable

(Joint First Place, Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku Contest 2022; shortlisted for the Touchstone Award for Best Individual Poem 2022; from Faunistics)

blinking sun...
a wall lizard's
stop motion

(First published in Presence #47; from Faunistics)

ghost wind
blowing its last note
a cumulonimbus

(First Place, Third Maya Lyubenova Haiku Contest; Under the Basho 'Personal Best 2022')