Poetry -  recently published 

You can also read thoughts to do with inspiration and creative practice here 

The Mountain’s Voice

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Slate smooth.

Amber through darkness.

Tannins of peat and sheep 

cropped turf.

Water of rock 

and rain 

rushed - to stillness.

In this dark pool 

under the sky

rock body 

holds time 

in liquid form.

The mountains’ voice.

Its quiet insistence

ripples my listening thoughts

Wrapping its cold question

So neatly around my offering 

of warmth

I would dissolve

For its answer.

I swim. 

In a dim liminal memory 

of time kept silence.

And the quiet grass 

and the shining sky.

Published in  Watermarks - Writing by Lido Lovers and wild Swimmers, Frogmore Press, 2017

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Wake to Listen

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I dream of rock form

and hear the river.

I wake to listen and

walk the curved back

of the ridge.

The intensity 

of mass

rising. Chalk bone 

under soft skinned 

grass.

I walk palimpsest here

among the Hawthorn

in the hollow track

footfall as gift

footfall as question.

The soft blue

of a flint flake shines

out of the tuned earth

my thumb smooths 

a silent orbit of its limits. 

Surrender, you said.

Persevere.

I am here

on the wind’s edge

Quietly gathering 

things 

back to myself.

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Low down

Listening

stone shape 

in sheep space

An instinct of stillness. 

Through grass

written tall 

against the last of the light.

Something here 

whispered 

gifting its strength in the dusk.

The quiet song 

of our familial 

bond.

I wait for the sky

pooling black 

star - full

in warm darkness

and feel the rock form 

and hear the river.

Published in Unpsychology Magazine Climate Minds Issue 4, March 2018

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Call

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Know this soul

that burning hard

as rocks

that fierce iron ache

that blinding face

of sky

behind a loved line

of hills

that bone chill 

rook’s call

is only the shell

breaking. That longing

that has you running

to feel

your physical body

that cannot be stemmed

by blood

or what you call love.

Don’t try to find
a pain to match

it is wide

as a storm

full sky

taking each face

to earth, 

back to flint

fingers to fire. 

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That clarity.

I call you.

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Published in Unpsychology Magazine Climate Minds Issue 4 March 2018

Oak and Chestnut mainly,

some Pine gathered

from the woodpiles

of boatbuilders and carpenters

all just not, quite

the little flock of outsiders

watching me paint

in left out quiet

from the corners of my studio.

Gradually they watched

insistently, together

fragments hummed

with being

unseen

much silent noise

on our unknown frequencies

gathered their vibrance

in object presence

to the elements of painting

to hum 

their being.

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