This is Not the Poem I Had Hoped to Write This is not the poem I had hoped to writewhen I sat at my desk and the page was white.You see, there were other words I’d had in mind,yet this is what I leave behind. I thought it was a poem to eradicate war;one of…
Poem
The Last Bee After the last ee had uzzed its last uzz, the irds and the utterflies did what they could. ut soon the fields lay are, few flowers were left, nature was roken, and the planet ereft.
The Problem of Writing Poems in Hot Weather The problemof writingpoemsinhot weather isthatthe wordsgetsweatyand sticktogether.
What Don Corleone Did Next upon retiringfrom the mafia he wove aquatic mammalsout of raffia let me tell youhow I learnt this news: he made me an otterI could not refuse
I’m out and about reading poems at various literary festivals this week, starting with Leek on Wednesday, then Chester on Thursday. They’re both sold out but there are still tickets available for my show at the Nottingham Poetry Festival on Saturday should that be of interest to you. Tickets for that are on sale here:…
Much to my surprise, some of my shows this year are on the verge of selling out. You may need to get your rollerblades on if you plan to come to any of the following, which have fewer than 50 tickets remaining: 9May: FILEY Literature Festival3 June: LEEK Arts Festival4 June: CHESTER Literature Festival8 Oct:…
Life of a Naturalist it’s his birthdayand the sloths are up early for oncethe flamingos line up in pink, long-legged salutethe birds of paradise parade in their finestthe elephants blow their trumpetsthe blue whales gush with joythe gorillas act out stories of his visitsthe lions lay off the wildebeest for one dayand stand together on…
Anniversary I forgot, I said,but since when was our love builton anything so ordinaryas a date? Let other couples mark time.I am too caught upwith the here and the now of youto waste these hoursin commemoration of the past. Because our love is vast,like an ocean,with depths far beyondothers’ comprehension. Why spend our lives…
Job Interview with a Cat Tell me, what is it about this position that interests you? The warmth, perhaps? The security? Or the power you must feel by rendering me useless? Feel free to expand if you wish. I see you have had experience of similar positions. Can you talk about a time when you got somebody’s tongue? Or were…
It’s publication day for ‘How to Lay an Egg with a Horse Inside’. For those of you who preordered, I hope your copy has arrived and you enjoy reading it. For those of you who, for some strange reason, didn’t preorder, it should be out there in most bookshops for perusal and purchase. But only…