A number of my poems have been published:
‘Iodine’, South 41, April 2010.
‘Tynemouth priory’, Pulsar, May 2017.
‘The night that takes our shape’, Ink Sweat and Tears, October 2017. This was voted ‘poem of the month’ by readers.
Here is one my recent unpublished poems:
On the death of a friend
three kestrels fly about st martha’s hill
inscribing their curlicued
illuminations flashing ink
against the greying vellum of the clouds
— three kestrels hover above fields of tarnished gold
three kestrels fly about st martha’s hill
the circle of their meditations
wheeling on the thermals sketching
thin inscrutable litanies the purpose of ritual
— three kestrels screech wordless prayers in the wind
three kestrels fly about st martha’s hill
clawing blood from rain
ripping bone from air waiting
for the chapel bell to toll across the Chantries
— three kestrels brood their praying turned to prey
suddenly — heart stopped — they plummet
one by one falling to
an end an abyssal drop
thrown by gravity to
earth and stone
screams and blood
rust and bone
dust and ash
you clutch your heart/you seize the light/you ride the wind
and then suddenly — heart stopped —
you are thrown
from cloud
to clay
to silence
to kneaded clod
from flesh to bone