Category: Poetry
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0205: Journal of Thoughts

5:30am, 2 May — Newhaven Ferry Terminal the house still holds nightin its corners. kettle breath,zips closing,the quiet certaintyof leaving. by eight,the ferry will loosen the landfrom beneath us. sea wideninglike a thoughtwe’ve decided to follow. I have packedfor French rain,for winds that speak lightly, and left a small, deliberate space for tins of sardinesin…
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0105: Journal of Thoughts

7:30pm, 1 May (Beltane) Car Packed and Ready once,I would have lain awakeon the edge of leaving, maps bright behind my eyes,the pull of elsewherelike a tide I couldn’t ignore. now, I sleep. because the road is known,the ferry a familiar hingebetween two roomsthat I have lived in long enoughto forget which one is mine.…
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AprPAD — Day 30

How to Bend a Spoon somehowher younger self still knows —step back into her shadow. “the apples will be abundant this year,” she says,changing the subject.“ripe before autumn.” she watches the sun drink from a puddle,summer not quite here. “you’re not special,” he says.“such foolishness.doula-foola.nonsense —humming to a fallen bird,as if it hears you.” a…
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AprPAD — Day 29

A Pocketful of Reasons the birds began first,then wind in the high leaves and suddenlythe whole forestwas louder than thinking. some bloodlines,my grandmother said,keep watchwhere the seen worldthins. perhaps that is whybirds sing harderin the trees, and small creaturesfind uswhen they are leaving. they seem to know. in my pocketa silence I can’t namefeathers, still…
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2904: Journal of Thoughts

An Hour in April 19:20in the conservatory,we sit inside a bowl of blue. moon halfway risen,unhurried as breath. Peder reads the future aloud,electric, precise, kWh,while my little Renault restswith the memory of roads still warm. outside,apple trees hold the last birdsonglike a secret not yet spent. and the clouds, pink drawn sidewaysas if the sky…
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AprPAD — Day 28

Breakfast, and Other Small Violences the spoon snappinglike a jack russellat the bowl, metaltapping his teeth — a bright, unbearable code. Stop scraping. The chew,the crunch … do I sound like thisto the world? like a broomworrying the floorwith every breath? His phone leansagainst the salt shaker, thumb scrollingthrough other lives. Againthat scrape. I step…
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2804: Haibun Monday

No Facebook. No X. Less news — especially politics and war. It seems endless, a kind of tinnitus. I move through the day in relative silence, reclaiming space, attentive again to the small things around me, freed from the relentless alarms of a thousand strangers. Today, after lunch, I sat in the sun and drifted…
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AprPAD — Day 27

Afterward There Was the Afternoon a napin the afternoon sun, where poems wait birds arguingin hedges sunlighton warming soil breezesoscillating roots that resisted yesterdaybut not today the quiet satisfactionof looseningwhat does not belong weeding is good editorial practice, after all. keep what thrives.lift what crowds. make space for what wants light. and while I work,no…
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2704: A Different Six

Without Sense I am tired of men who grinwhile cities burn, of suitswho call it strategy, of flagsused as shrouds. I am tiredof the loud being mistakenfor strong, of crueltydressed as realism,of madnessgiven microphones while decent peoplecount coins,ration heat,and bury children. Do not ask mefor balance when the scale itselfis broken. Do not ask mefor…
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AprPAD — Day 26

Last Thing I’d Expect she says last Sundayshe woke with a rash. five days laterthe rash goestop to toe. all gone now — had a jab of somethingwith a long name. Giles has moved back home with his wife,and their dog. I comment on the carparkedin front of her house. she nods.that’s his. did I…