The poet during a recent visit to Great Britain. The historic engine makes a good backdrop. I’m a bit historic myself. Sorry about the multiplication of images. I still haven’t worked out how to manage the graphics yet.

Why this blog?

This is where I draft and store my poetry.  I have yet to get anything published. I have yet to score a mention in any competitions. My work is bloody good as far as I am concerned. I make clear arguments, which is unusual in poetry today, and I make skilful use of form. So far it has failed to stir anyone else. I am the only audience I need for now. I am also working on novels. Hopefully success as a novelist will open the door for my poetry. The world doesn’t really know what it likes until somebody leads it astray.

I claim copyright on my poems – even if nobody else wants them or knows about them just yet! The dates of the poems can be a bit misleading as I redraft them from time to time and this is only recorded on the relevant pages, not here.

I love writing poetry. Enough said.

A SAMPLE

PROTEUS COMPLAINING

I don’t like what you tried to do
what you did
Xerxes did before you
lash the sea
lash the sea out of spite
flog that elastic strength
into the submissive firmness of a road
or at least you tried to.

I will not wear the patter of your hobnailed boots
I will not be the highway for your loot
I will not lie down
I will not surrender the curve
the playful arching of my back
the wiggle-room waves crave
in the great sloshing to-and-fro turmoil
inside the heart’s barnacle-covered cave

I am my own man not yours.

Whatever I choose to be
form I take
representation of my will
light flung hung on the ceiling
bouncing around barnacles
in a great guffaw of mirth
being free
no stone-sucking barnacle I
am by nature’s law the man I am.

I am my own man not yours.

So should the wind trip along the wild tongue 
of water
roaring from the sky’s throat
 I shall explode from my cave
and skud along 
the white-whipped surf without a boat.

I am my own man not yours.

ANOTHER SAMPLE

THE CRAB
The prey of any larger thing
That flies or swims or walks,
I run sideways in armour plates,
My eyes lookouts on stalks.

Huge and malformed, my fists express
My hatred of the land.
It offers me no refuge but
These barren rocks and sand.

Huge and malformed, my fists express
My hatred of the sky.
What earthly use is all that space
To those who cannot fly?

Huge and malformed, my fists express
My hatred of the sea.
How can I love a thing like that
That made a thing like me?

Yet none is better formed than I
For grabbing and for holding
Small morsels drifting round the seething
Edge of a devil’s cauldren.