Poetry Samples

Note all text copyright Alex Oliver and can be found in full in the booklet

One Dark Summer

When summer darkens

into owlight day and shadowsulk,

the gnomon stone on Hermit Hill

creeps unseen, by hours marked

in the brittle breath of dust and detritus

where children finger amphorae,

slipsherd, and fragmented fingers

One found a stone

that marks a door to go

where you need to be

and sometimes

your destination changes…

Dragon Songs

These dream-flown articulate metal fish

burst onto the brim of life,

their rainbows winking to darkness

before my inner child could chase them down

Hadrian’s Wall

A sample from 'Other Tales':

A bone of contention,

it garottes a mound of corpses

who pipe the air with ghostly pride

Smitten with the colours of rebellion,

it calls the living to haunt the dead