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Poetry, bikes, dementia...
Poetry, bikes, dementia...
by Dylan Thomas My poetry coach, the wonderful Pele Cox, has asked me to commit this poem to memory. It’s proving to be a tough gig. Not least because the last time I learned lines was probably as Friedrich von Trapp in the Parkfields School…
I was asked to pen a birthday poem to celebrate the first anniversary of The Big Live Breakfast Burrito – perhaps the weirdest, most eclectic but nonetheless wonderful LinkedIn live you’ll ever see. Follow the Burrito link to see the reading in context. Here it…
This is a story that resonates with what is happening today. It was first broadcast on BBC Radio Norfolk and features an interview with my good friend and former BBC colleague Conal O’Donnell. It’s the extraordinary story of Paul Hoda’c who fled to the UK…
Of all the tear-jerking images of war on the edges of Europe, one or two have stayed with me: birds shocked from their treetop roosts by the deep boom of artillery fire; a woman handing out sunflower seeds to occupying Russian forces. This poem has…
Here’s how the dream unfolds: behind the gritted lids of night is told the story of an ironed-flat sea – moonlight over mercury. Soon out. Beyond the beach. Deep down below the folds and creases. Rapid eyes. Heart beat increases. Mouthing silently as they sink…
Dear Mum Wish you were here! El Medano reminds me of Swanage. Sand, sea, sunshine, taut salty skin. The tide of geological time turning as the waves wash in and out and in…But then these days everywhere reminds me of Swanage. Wish you were here In that…
* 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 Windsor-knotted Sunday best. But on…
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 refer to the map. It’s…
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 brush and whip the latherFoamy-faced…
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 wings there’s nothing to be…
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 the blinking eyes of menWith…
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 by the scurvy of disease,Sink.…