As I explain in the main menu, this section will slowly be populated by poems from the book Digging for Water, which I will first include as Poem of the Month before moving them here. However, as I also explain, the number of poems I can put here for free is limited by the threat of my book being taken off sales websites if I place too many.

A GRAIN OF SAND

So little rain this year
and the green is late, but
hold your breath, be silent,
it will come:
tapping its elfin rhythm
on its drum.

A telescope, a microscope,
might shine a probing
light onto our world
and claim to see more true:
but these trees will soon be budding
under blue.

And later flowers will spread
their dizzy colours
with a flutter and a tinkling
fey as wind chimes,
and we’ll wonder at a world
in which the years rhyme.

Yet even here one day
the drum will stop, on this
earth which seems eternal,
timeless, grand:
but from the sky is nothing more
than a grain of sand.

BROTHERLY LOVE

She didn’t have much of a life, my sister.
I was the lucky one, the boy
She showered with chocolates.
I got every toy.

She got sick when she was twelve, my sister:
Meningitis, almost died.
And the beat of a rebellious heart
Began to shrivel inside.

She waited for my calls, my sister,
As she lived her life alone
While I was thousands of miles away
And found reasons not to phone.

She got sick when she was old, my sister:
Too many cigarettes.
And this is my only way to thank her now
So that no one forgets.

DIGGING FOR WATER

Yet we dig for water,
All these long years on
The well is dry.
Still no one wonders why
We dwell in deserts.

Life skins and scalds the heart
To forge a pebble smooth as glass:
The tears don’t pierce the flesh like in the past,
The winters bite less sharp.

Yet we dig for water,
Then in our shame we’ll wash
The dark earth from our hands,
But it remains.

The well stays dry.
With blunted paws we scratch the earth
To quench this endless thirst.

Life rolls and scalds the heart
Till all is dry: like dust, like sand.
Yet still we dig for water,
The dark earth on our hands.

SNOWBLIND

you can’t imagine, he said,
what it feels like never to sleep,
that cold eye constantly watching,
that sun which never sets, never
to stroll through that garden of
luminous orchids, their somnolent aroma
in the air, hanging limply, while
a soft rain kisses and swaddles
willowy skin. I looked into
his eyes and I went deep and I
caught him counting stars, this boy
who couldn’t dream, I caught him
counting one two three in marble halls
and I knew how terrible it must be, the weight
of this avalanche of consciousness,
this world of icy peaks which had left him
snowblind. So later, when the moon
slipped through the window so grateful
I felt as I tucked myself up in bed,
head on fluffy pillows scented with
petals, sand sifting through my mind
as my fingers ran through fur,
cuddling calm and warm my teddy bear.

VETERAN’S DAY POPPY

The simple white crosses of the fallen
In tidy row on row, a world of order
Those poor young frightened boys
Would never know.

The wild red fields of poppies
Decamping free ahead, an anarchy
Those poor young frightened boys
Would come to dread.

The thick brown mucus of mud
On top of rotted green, a pelt of slime
Those poor young frightened boys
Would never clean.

The simple white crosses of the fallen
Naked in the rain, mislaid prayers
Those poor young frightened boys
Would never pray again.

HOUSE OF CARDS

This will end one day, my only lover,
And the game we are forced to play
Will all be over, and the pieces on the board
Will all mean nothing:
They only matter in the playing.

The knight will have no sword
And the bishop will be stripped of his purple silk.

It’s hard for you to see this, my only lover,
For you are so much younger
And your heart is so much softer
And you imagine that this game is played for real.

So let’s build our house of cards together,
But if the ace of hearts is removed
All the walls come tumbling down
For their bricks are made of nothing:
That’s how helpless we are.

So be brave, my only lover,
For one day the game will be over
And nothing will matter.

FAKE

Is anything as fake as a poet?
We listen to his pain
As he feigns to script in his blood
And sips champagne.

Is anything as fake as a poet?
His heart fit to burst,
But as he plights his troth
He’s composing verse.

Is anything as fake as a poet?
With his clarion call,
Too busy trumpeting words
To do much at all.

Yes, nothing is as fake as a poet
And his glitzy chandelier,
And yet in this hall of mirrors
The twist is perhaps he’s sincere.

LOST

The shriek of trees misshapen by the wind,
A coastline carved by waves;
These truths are obscured in our cities
Where we measure in minutes and days.

An April that was once a glorious Fool
Skating past the snows of yesteryear,
Then we skipped light-headed the maypole,
White blossom in our hair.

Now we gaze up at a cavernous void
Where once a swirl of stars inspired,
And we glimpse a lonesome crescent moon,
Friendless and tired.

We are lost, creatures in a maze
Of tangled trees, aimlessly we roam;
Heads buried in a bed of leaves,
A melted remembrance of home.

THE MYSTIC AND THE SCIENTIST

Words shoot up like fireworks,
Emblazon the sky and are gone,
While subterranean rhizomes
Stubbornly cling on.
Cleverness fails. It slams shut the gate
To the wilderness of unreason
And stays safe. In the icy grip
Of the intellect
No one ever plays dice.

Roots twist down into darkness
But that way madness lies,
While the flashes of glad fireworks
Enlighten grime-filled eyes.
Mystery stings. We gaze overhead
At the sketches that we pattern
To fight dread. And in our draping
Of the heavens
Constellations also cling.

SURF’S UP

so many children have sung here
so many adults played
on days as bright as sunflowers
when there isn’t any shade

so many eons have rolled in
of saltwater sculpting land
like a chord on an old piano
beat out by a steady hand

so much joy in the water
the eternal dance of the waves
and the ring of whooping voices
resounds in sandy caves

the ocean singing turquoise
as foam splashes over rocks
but soon the moon is rising
so many forgot

A FIELD OF CABBAGE

Painters and poets dash past with scarcely a glance,
Heads abuzz with bougainvillea, or the delirium
Of roses, or even humdrum buttercups:
No thought for these chunky leaves
That bear no flowers.

Not even worth a scarecrow, these bushy clumps
Whose green flesh spreads in lines which meld
And maul each other. No beady eyes stare down, no wings
Hover in the sky to swoop and land; these regimented rows
Tempt only slugs and snails.

Weeds spring up among the crinkled green,
On their spindly stems perch vulgar yellow flowers,
A mocking hello. The black of the earth below
Sits rich in spoilage, and value swells in fattened leaves,
But there are no voices here to sing their praise.

Along the road, on the beach, lie the beautiful people
In ranks of bright, bronzed flesh bound tight in speedos
And skinny bikinis, teeth glinting like their shades,
Their self-love mirrors. Nothing of the soil
Clings to these gilded bodies smoothed of wrinkles.

The painters and the poets pause to sketch their beauty,
So it falls to this failed poet to write instead a song
To this humble field of cabbage: no pastorale for a harp
Or tremulous piccolo, but an anthem boomed on double bass,
A paean to a world where bougainvilleas ring shallow.

LEAF

the night bled softly around me
braided me in black
his secret lover

the city streets I roamed
in search of other shadows
like them I couldn’t hear
the clip-clop of my steps

I was happy then
strange to feel so alone
and yet so happy

the dark sky was my mirror
the stars were sparkles of ice
and none of the sleepy houses
bore any lights

I was empty then

empty as a leaf
blown through beautiful gutters,
silent streets

alone but never lonely
a leaf blown free