Good Friday, 2013: Driving Westwards
On this shared road westwards
where Donne thought deep into faith,
the car kicks down a gear and the
A5 unspools its tune like ferric tape,
the tyres’ slow hymn on tarmac,
perhaps I dare to think of hope;
on the cusp of winter’s long tenancy
wondering if, when, spring come again;
if, after this austere new ice age,
we can ever know what’s really been lost.

The Roman road’s shattered spine
now arches through a wayside hinterland;
small towns pick-pocketing each other,
stripped of their old callings and clinging
to name alone; the setting sun shatters
between pylon and gantry, local colour
bled out into warehousing valleys,
artics shunting a service economy
from hub to hub, supplying demand
in a strategically-decommissioned landscape.

Into the westerly sunset – at Donne’s back
the weight of imagery, of blood and thorns,
he almost dared not to turn…

David and the Hummingbird
For Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)
Joyce tells a story of the day
the bird flew into the shed
and would not leave;
it beat its wings until it fell
exhausted to the floor.

But it didn’t end like that,
nor was this the beginning—

The morning of the Kill,
the hummingbird flew through the open door
and circled round and round the blood
“It was not interested to feed,” she said,
but just to see and understand.

It went up into the rafters,
and then down again
towards the cement floor.
Its blues and greens dancing in
the light and dark;
the corners hiding it and then
like magic, letting it be seen.

David tried to make it leave;
first, sugar feeders lured it outside;
then, when it was noon, the
darkest noon they’d ever seen,
the thunder began.
He set the sugar water inside the garage…

Tanzania, Dar Es Salaam

He reads the chalked-up list; ‘banana tree’,
‘coconut’ and ‘flower’. Then he smiles.
He’s ten, so he’s the oldest in this class.

I wouldn’t have believed that once. But then,
one day when he was walking with his friend,
wearing his hat to keep the sun away

suddenly a giant grabbed his cap
to cover my lad’s face so he was blind
and could not dodge the blade that chopped his arm.

My son ran to the town to save his flesh.
The myth says spells are cast from body parts.
These rural paths twist traps for boys like him.

A thousand times a thousand times, and more
I’m happy for him to be safe at school.
If he had stayed with me he would be lost.

I miss his smile. He should be here with us.
But when he visits home, what food we make!

Photograph: E.E. Nobbs

But I Should Never Think of Spring
(After Hoagy Carmichael)

You brought a ghost with you, her prints
in the softening earth, her snowy breath
on the windowpane, on the mirrors, but mostly
clinging to the air between us, to our lips,
to the voice of Hoagy Carmichael as he sang
‘I Get Along Without You Very Well’ – you didn’t know
his music but fell when you heard that, saying
you had never heard such a song, saying you wanted
to hear all his songs, your eyes full of soft rain dripping
from leaves, your voice full of sheltering in her arms –
I lay beside you and listened, looking into the dark eyes
of the fox, the dark eyes of the owl and Hoagy singing
it’s not the pale moon that excites me that thrills
and delights me oh no it’s just the nearness
of…

There has been discussion about what a poet is and whether one can confer the title on oneself. I was tentative for a long time about calling myself a poet. Many say a poet is someone who writes poems. But what makes something a poem? When I was a very young poet (13 or 14), I used to show my work to people and ask’ is this a poem?’ by which I meant ‘does it do what poems are meant to do, is it magic?’That is why I don’t believe in bad poems, if it’s bad, it’s not a poem. William Carlos Williams said ‘if it ain’t a pleasure, it ain’t a poem’.
By calling oneself a poet, if one simply means that one writes poems, I don’t have an issue with that. But the secondary definition is that a poet is a ‘person with great imagination and creativity’. I…

Roundel Poetry Competition 2015
Roundel is a Poetry Society Stanza

Judge: Susan Wicks

First Prize: £200 Second Prize: £100 Third Prize: £50

Entry fee: £3 per poem. No entry form needed. Open to anyone aged 18 or over. Poems are welcome on any subject. There is no limit to the number of entries per person. Each poem should be typed on a single A4 sheet. Your name must not appear on the poem. Please enclose a separate A4 sheet with your name, contact details, email address and title(s) of your poem(s).
Closing date: 31 May 2015. Postal entries only.

RULES

Poems must be:

the entrant’s original work
written in English
no longer than 40 lines (not including title or dedication)
unpublished and not already accepted for publication

Poems will be judged anonymously and the judge will see each piece. No entrant may win more than one prize. Winners will be…