Three Poems
I Gilgamesh At the Blasted Gates At the blasted gates Gilgamesh falls to his knees. ‘What now?’ he cries. His…
In the Black Country
(for Roy Palmer) Brush the sooted trees at Cradley, Tramp the ironworks’ ash at Brierley, Taste the coal-dust, swirled…
Figurehead
Salt is how you taste and Tarred rope of frayed hair at Arm and groin as if I’m Swimming…
Three Poems
Catch 1. Grey Mullet Their mouths were small, lips too soft to tether a run, or bear their weight when…
Two Translated Poems by Sergey Esenin and Vladimir Mayakovsky
To most Anglophone readers Sergey Esenin (1895-1925) and Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) probably number among the less familiar Russian poets.…
Three poems
Condensation on a windowpane 1 I want to write something simple, something simple, few adjectives, ambiguities disallowed. Something old-fashioned: a story…
Aunt Jane was a Fallen Woman, my family said
Her washing line held one dress, Grace Kelly like, large pink flowers blending to the garden. Wouldn’t have fitted…
Kleopatra: Room 62
(British Museum) What flung me out of life, I do not know: all I can recall again and again…
Joy Riding
On a morning in Lent, dense with rain, even with the wipers going it’s not easy to see the…
Three poems
Camille Alone Camille Claudel to Rodin While I weep, alone in my blacked-out room, you are being fêted: your long-standing…
Instructions for a Burial
Bury me in a rut on Clay Pit Hill In a cardboard box to let the worms in quick…
Moon and Little Nina
Daughter, booted, struck out of stride by the dogs, people on bicycles, the unattached sky. The horses made honest…
A Letter to Wat Tyler
Dear Wat, I think you would be baffled to know that a thousand years after you were slashed and stabbed,…