Boy Again
It hangs in the air on a string of suddenness, tiny bat-like wings beating gasps of evolution. This Rufous Hummingbird is beyond any British bird I know. A whipping, yo-yoing puppet, fooling the flower, following invisible air streams owned by dragonflies. Impossible imposter beating butterflies with its fairy act. Its tongue unfurls from blurry imagination, its body becomes a puff of fantasy and thankfulness. I religiously wait hours for the resident miracle to reappear in magical blinks and bolts. This morning a Black-chinned Hummingbird is lighting just beyond arms length, bobbing into yellow buds then bulleting back to the orange flowers. A few days later and my eye is tuned. I can spot them just from frantic twitters. Every time I see a hummingbird now I am drinking nectar, blessed, a little boy again. Christmas Rooks Rooks over Elbe at ten to four trying out a mumouration, having seen starlings ooooh the flocks of 2-legged feeders. They flow in uneven rolling arm waves and clumsy cutting hands. The black birds as big as hawks as they try to land on tram line posts but smack back into the rollercoaster, bicker the air, snapping at each others’ flight feathers. After ten minutes they gather over the Japanese Palace, clotting the sky in wheeling, oily drops. But some sniff out the festivities, flying low over the old town, packed Christmas markets, easy pickings of pork, bread, gluhwein glued throngs. They settle noisily on a crane building an apartment block in mock historical style, complaining of food not shared, Christmas. Published March 2018 in SheilaNaGig, USA.
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When I was a boy
I was not afraid of reaching Lands End. I lost myself exploring the hardback Ordinance Survey Book of Britain, inspired by the colours, contours, the way a flat aerial view gained dimensions in my unmapped imagination. I drew maps of imagined lands. The pencil could never catch the dream, but I sketched views around me: soft hills, woods with hidden predators, rivers wriggling towards estuaries, a mouthy coastline and islands, distant moors on a misty edge. For hours, my unreal maps and the real world around me had no physical difference. I hovered above both, watching landscapes unfold, hoping to always float above. Published March 2018 in Words for the Wild. |
Poetry Biography:I have had over 70 poems published in the following worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Acta Victoriana (Canada), All the Sins (UK), The Amethyst Review (USA), Amsterdam Quarterly (NL) The Blue Nib (Ireland), Bolts of Silk, Borderless Journal, The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Bushfire Literature & Arts Review (US), Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), DASH (USA), Clackamas Literary Review (USA), Cooch Behar Anthology, Dawntreader, Dreamcatcher, The Dillydoun Review, Earth Love, The Ear (US), Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Ginosko, Gloom Cupboard, Hidden Channel, Inlandia Journal, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), Into the Void (Canada), The Journal, The Lakeview Journal (India), Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Lunch Ticket (USA) The New Writer, One Hand Clapping, Orbis, Oregon English Journal (USA), The Passage Between, Prole, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom (India), Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), New Contrast (South Africa), One Hand Clapping, Opportunity Publishing, The Oregon English Journal (USA) Origami Poems Project (USA), The Paddock Review (USA), Panoplyzine (USA), Paper Swan Press, The Passage Between, The Peacock Journal (USA), Pens on Fire, Poetry Salzburg (Austria), Potomac Review, (USA) Prole, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Qutub Minar Review (India), Red Ink, Shiela-Na-Gig (USA), South Bank Poetry Magazine, Stand, Waterford Teachers Centre, (Ireland) We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore), Weber - The Contemporary West Review (USA), Windfall (USA), Writing Magazine, Words for the Wild and Verbal Art (India). Archives
March 2024
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