A person with a bad name is already half hanged. Chinese proverb.
Their playground taunts sounded literary: Man Friday, Man Friday. Robinson Crusoe. A book only read in the abridged Lady Bird version. A book I hated. Every day, a slave to a joke lower than sarcasm. Every chuckle chipped away at my island reserve, whittling me down to a core of self-esteem painfully rebuilt as an adult. Every time my name is said now, I have flashbacks to my shipwrecked schooling, and I am parched off words again, blushing with the embarrassed anger of a stowaway in my own identity. Now, aged 39, I start to read the book and realise what a masterpiece it is. I want to think, what luck to have the same name. But I still ripple with shame from my starvation days. Published in New Contrast #177, Autumn 2017.
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The Nuthatch
After thirty years of blurs doubted by noisy blue tits, pencil hovering over the page of my RSPB Book of Birds, boyhood never migrating despite gathering crows, I see you: an inverted triangle on the tree trunk in Dresden’s Grosser Garten. Pastel blue back by Monet, belly of creamy chestnuts, beak borrowed from wood- peckers, you probe the trunk, relegated to sinew secrets; branches belong to songbirds. You listen for threats, Mum calling time on summer, autumn burning every leaf. Suddenly you flit down to my squatting trunk, hopping closer, sideways, staring up at me, eyeball centre of black Milky Way stripe. The boy shivers with excitement. Teach me the language of wings. Unsure, you forage, tasting wafer thin leaf snacks, then shoot off to the opposite tree, the next pillar in your creation. You bolt back and forth, squeaking lessons in blue electron language, hanging upside down, circling through time, gravity an after- thought, until gone in a bluish, teary raindrop. You leave me aged ten, RSPB book quivering. Then Mum calls time for tea. April Evening on the River Exe Faint white bulbs glide past, collecting quietly, a crowd of swans settling into the evening’s noble invisibility. Quivering candle reflections of window lights on the water, the world closing its eyes, blurring day-sharp boundaries Black blurs unzip the cooling air: furry coal bodies of bats, shadow wings clasping the sun’s frayed edges, hunting the last heat. Pigeon Over Prague A pigeon over Prague playing at being a swift. Must have heard the stories about wings of wind cut to copy the moon, a voice that cuts clouds, eyes that open inside summer. So it tried out the chapters, rolling in the air, diving, mooning, trying to recreate last year's myths or make an early legend in March, giving pigeons a reason to be proud, not pests. Writers Statement on Beauty Beauty is refusing to be beaten: dwarfed by decades but dressed like a teen with summer slipped over a bright bikini, blonde hair, outrageously large sunglasses. She went up an elevator in a shopping mall while a young couple came down, looked down, noticed, sniggered, whispered about this youthful soul refusing to age appropriately. The aged beauty saw the young couple, knew what they said, but carried on going up, adjusted her glasses, cracked out a reddened smile and refused to be beaten. Published June 2017 in The Peacock Journal. |
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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