circling round
When I got a my first full-time job, at Birmingham University, it was the second time that I'd moved from northeast England to Birmingham, because I did my BSc at the same university.…
•poetry•
nightbirds
The Night Bird: cross-border train tracking through the darkened Alps, stars defining the mountain peaks, a chain of moonlit cameos coasting back along the line…
Byzantium as palimpsest
I chose the title of this blog (Flying Over Byzantium) because of the fascination I have with Byzantium…
parallel parting
She said it might put things in perspective if they spent some time apart. Overspent, her paramour could only assent…
null island
Once upon a time there lived a man on an island drenched in the tang of spray and scent of pine where the forest river ran into the cove, in a rivulet silvery-grey…
my heart's a hotel
My heart's a hotel people come and go through the lounge but all check out Your body is a well worn banknote sadly still in circulation Our love bouncing like a cheque round one hopefully intimate weekend…
Santa Cruz at dawn
I was up before dawn because of jet lag. Full-size image here An inscription at the end of the wharf reads: In the tides of time we have sought safe harbor here on this western shore where the waves ebb…
Byzantium
The unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song After great cathedral gong; A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities, The fury and the…
Sailing to Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations – at their song, The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever…
living inside a rock
I live here, inside this rock. It's safer in here, no-one can touch me. The Black Guards cannot hurt me. When the Great Comet passes by, it cannot burn me. How did I get here? The living rock simply grew…
the railroad not taken
Two railway tracks diverged in a yellow wood, but the points were set for the branch line so that was that. (apologies to Robert Frost)…
window
Glass. You see through it. Glittering, clasp it. Crush it, scatter red stained shards. Reflect. Windows reflect a little: spirit mirrors. Listen, hear your breath going yellow at the edges. Death's thin spirit, quite crushed lingers as a filter in…