ABOVE ABERAERON (First prize, Wirral Poetry Competition 2023)
I’ve bought a large Dublin Bay; it was her favourite rose
prolific bloomer
red
as a hot temper
now to find a pot big enough for its sturdy root
(and ego)
this is to be the rose, that never dies
flowering repeatedly, until you are sick of it
I find a pot
in a field
overlooking the sea
a cow nuzzling, as if expecting a square meal from it
the bottom has rusted through, but the ashy, borough corporation, tin
is just the thing
I will put a pot within a pot (appearance half the battle)
if rose meets concrete
it can find a crack and take its chances
I look at the sea, the sea looks at me
there are clouds like cabbages and a thin, thin break of light towards Ireland
I drag the pot across the field and wonder if the farmer will miss it
LA VIE RURALE (Second in the Spelt Poetry Competition, 2023)
of course
it sent many to an early grave
the wages were terrible
the sodden thatch dripped
one didn’t have much time to contemplate
there was too much to do
beauty was in the cities
in museums and La Mairie
and if one looked up
it was to check the gravid clouds over a distant hill
the world is small
small in a village without track and rail
where grand-père burnt lime
and spread it on the absinthian fields
bent thorns into hedges
stacked hay as high as a cockrel’s crow
ploughed a straight furrow
to the Maginot Line
the soil contains
all you need to know
and as the blade
turns and unearths a coin, sword or bones
his story
reveals like a crop of cabbages, mined by moles
grand-père was a slow fighter
who found his way home
to cattled grass and pregnant trees
and the Mayor’s daughter, knocking on his door
Three Poems published in Cake Magazine (issue 13) 2023
LOOKING UP
I wish
I was a mountain
not one of those
big lumps
a fine looking mountain
sculpted
by glaciers
with a light trim
of snow
on frosty mornings
I would be a tricky mountain
to climb
so mostly
people would look up at me
maybe
some religion will find me sacred
yes
I will be that mountain
aloof
often obscured by cloud
THE GREEN MUSE
I’ve bought some new shoes
for a trip
to Paris
only afterwards
did I realise
they were the colour of absinthe
so many poets went punch drunk
with the stuff
it became a wormy cliché
and any discussion of art
romance
or money
soon became a free for all of dis-association
once
every other year
a good
anise flavoured line
was written
sometimes one goes to the cornershop
for milk
and sometimes one goes to Paris
FROG SPAWN ON CEFN CYFF
frogs
must be optimists
laying spawn
in a puddle
at over a thousand feet
not exactly
the perfect liminal space
as tadpoles transition
gills
into lungs
tails
to legs
I moved to these mountains
with a hop
skip and a jump
I took
a chance (it paid off)