Francesco was the creator of furniture
for farms and towns, of chairs, tables
anything sourced from wood; olive his
preferred tree scenting each slice of the plane,
chip of a chisel, shavings falling from his lathe.

Running to the beach locals saw them
struggling against the rise of the wave
heads battling for breath, arms clawing
and the orange lifebelts of the dead
blooming on the sand, scattered cracked
planks of wrecked boats they’d boarded
with hope now shattered with dreams, families.

Men strode into the storm, drew crowds
from the waves but their efforts were puny,
he saw the grief, their loss and rejection
offered his skills to solace their despair,

bending he grasped the shattered planks
and fashioned crosses from the staves
symbols of crucifixion, their loss
passing to these refugee Christians
a token of comfort, memorial of the lost,

who Europe bars with wire thorns fearful
of…

English Poet Myra Schneider at her 80th Birthday celebration and the launch of her 12th collection

for Anne Cluysenaar

A honey sun, the cease of gnawing wind
so we seize the day, unleash ourselves
in the country park, gaze at flowers inscribed To Dad

lying on a bench. They summon a huge bee
to their pink and yellow freesia bells. Dreamily,
I too enter the nectar-laden chambers and feed.

Turning away, we follow the droghte of March track
to the water garden where snowdrops are fading,
daffodils are on the brink of opening

and expectation’s in bloom on naked trees.
Welters of lily stalks in the darks of a pond
are tangles of umbilical cords. Beyond the garden,

beyond the singing of birds is a lake which glitters
as if it’s a source of light. We sit down
on a wicker seat and there you are breathing

in the budding…

Sheets marked with crosses have fell in boxes
and withered windswept in this Autumn June
for no unity has been affected, a rain of Brexit
sweeps over a hurricane of doubt, discord brew.

The hack hags muse, stir over media cauldrons
brewing for answers, quick replies; but no magic
they can muster will rebottle the genie ink
that marked the crosses on the ballots
swirled us into the empty centre of the storm.

Breathless we wait while others call “Attention”
plan their futures behind the scene of our distress
as Jacobite Johnson waits for the rebellion and
Nigel, silent, held the bridle, lest the horses bolt
until Gove knocked him from his horse usurping
his ambition to be the new General, Nigel dropped the rein.

Across the ditch that was England’s primal protection
the victims of hate’s conflicts line up and ponder
when they can breach the rampart of the…

This England

This little raft, this tub, this oil-drum-lashed
construction on the waves, this fragile thing
with sails constructed from a ragged tablecloth
so proudly independent as it bobs and slaps
against the heaving seas, survives with crew
hand-picked to stare the foreign rabble out.

This floating island, sufficient to itself,
this little England all alone like Crusoe
on his empty beach beneath the palms,
in contemplation of its lovely littleness
while seabirds scream and glide above
and all the ocean and the skies look on.

Nicholas Murray is a poet and literary biographer and his latest poetry collection is The Migrant Ship (Melos).  His new book about borders, Crossings: a journey through borders will be published later this month by Seren.  He lives in Mid Wales where he and his wife, Susan Murray, run the Rack Press poetry imprint. In 2015 he won the Basil Bunting prize for poetry