Category Archives: Poetry

The hurt was histories old, but the bruise was aching new. I thought how, when divided by time, sly sadness spreads through in proportion, its division a sum multiplying. In framed moments it is fathomless, uncontrolled, drifting. When does love die? It’s always well before the knot unties, when the mind creeps upon an unknown […]

Reassurance   When did it start to be this way? Here or there once I was confided in, my opinion sought, my countenance searched. I was no wiser than most but I was your sage, your guide. And you mine. We had no need of mutual reassurance. Pulled back safe, we were released to a […]

 The library is quiet, distant, binding silence into memories, barely awake, hidden, helpless, somnolent, receding from recall manuscripts under the silver dust.   No, it’s a churning battlefield of blood, a crashing, exploding, splintering chaos of shouting and screaming, of death, destruction, dismay, pain and loss. Roaring words clash on the edges of light and […]

1   J Bree on a sung chord Left alone blown Her phone rang for years Waiting by the fence was a friend of mine, Jay Bree   looking into each passing car until one came back   left alone These remains On a short path past a broken hedge. A big white tent with […]

A shadow, a memory, crouching deep in this hollowed bone of night candles, waving from among the remains of something left in a forgotten hide, lying low, without scent or sight, dying unnoticed, while the twilight crowds trudged on.   So in the morning, face to the sun, and the indifferent terraced houses this procession […]

A circle of wishes black-pointed, skin-flecked spins scurries a desert of early morning meanders while wide wheels crash the machine judders a lover laughs, then is quiet boy   Back through the slatted lattice street-belly hums, a morning murmur gathers on the corner and newspaper stands tall as a back-stage boy you made it. You […]

“All concrete phenomena cannot manifest themselves of their own accord. They are mere perceptible appearances intended to represent their esoteric affinities with the primordial ideas” Manifeste de Symbolisme, Moréas   There is company in strangers, the passers-by of cities in self-embrace, out of place and straitened, stiff, welcoming the solitary confined, who ponder heavily the […]

From The family of Pascual Duarte   Slow echoes of bells, the tower pronounced golden retribution while the red fields slumbered. Clouds of birds climbed the columns of the sky; yellowed grass waved stiffly in the dying wind.   This landscape is scurried by the rattle of a teasel sun. The lodger dust, windless, lingers. […]

Trickle down? Level up? Double down? Own up? Bring down? Build up? Hunker down? Cheer up! Pipe down! Speak up! Drill down? Dig up? Cast down? Chin up! Take down? Set up? Swallow down? Throw up? Come down! Meet up! Kneel down! Stand up! Draw down? Pull up? Calm down! Het up! Write down? Check […]

1. The Martyrs It wasn’t enough to take a deep breath, then expel it slowly in relief, as I rounded the slip road to the arterial Boulevard Latrille, where the cars were triple-stacked. Exhaust fumes corrugated the air. I had to climb closer to the breeze chugging from the air conditioning and remember when ice, […]