Rich Uridge

Rich Uridge

Training company boss by day. Poet and a whole heap of other things by night. Plus the son of a mother who was killed in a care home while living with dementia.

The father, the son and the surgical spirit

* wuldres wealdend || woroldáre forgeaf “Take as long as you like he’s ready for you.” Shit and surgical spirit. There, I’ve said itIt’s only taken 22 years A forehead kissed. No words. No tears Too airless. Two chests deflated. His dressed in half…

The patron saint of paint

He spoke to me in a dream on the road to Santiago The pilgrim father. Ochre boots. Lamp black hair. “Any path can be a Camino. “Just start walking. You’ll know when you get there.” Now forgive me if I…

Shaving

I see him still, his face in mine.In this grey hair, that laughter line.Me on a chair to match his heightDad shaving in the morning light.  Reflecting back a boy and manThe man now gone the boy a manDip the…

Swift

First south and west, then north and east, I quarter up the sky.I’m watching for your sickle wings to scythe across my eye. I look, I look, then look again and listen for your scream.But bar the clap of pigeon…

We shall sight them on the beaches

They didn’t want to be fishers of menWomen and children first hauled from the seaAnd laid out on the deck like a prize catchGently by hands that are roughened by saltCalloused but not callous softened by saltTears that fall from…

Biology with Mr Fisher

Lesson one: let nature be your teacher.No scrape of chairs indoors, no blackboard chalkFor him. Classroom fields. An outdoor creatureWho smelled of earth and planted with his talk… Elms. Galleons afloat the pasture seasBut scuttled by scolytus. Now un-helmedHulls, boreholed…

Little Rocket Man

A lot has been made of Jeff Bezos’s short jaunt into space: whether he might have spent his money more wisely; as world leaders gather for COP26 what impact his venture might be causing the environment; even what constitutes “outer…

Juji

Juji is a mynah bird. Caught up in the evacuation of Kabul along with a young Afghan girl and carried to freedom in a cardboard box, this is quite simply the most moving and beautiful story you’ll hear for a…

Night farming

Furrows the Plough ‘cross the field of night.Bellows Canis at the owls out of sight.Callow Orion unbelted his might,Shallow-breathed Virgo sowed without fight. Sorrows the brow, Cassiopeia the queen.Mellow the music of Lyra, unseen.Hero Perseus his sword broad and keen.Hallow’d…