2020
It is the weight of this year, The heaviness of each dark morning, The silence of the first waking, And the emptiness of air Where once warmth was, That makes… Continue Reading
Browsing Category: Writing
The Loss Of Words
I’m now on the 151st day of my own personal lockdown, and only just realised it’s almost two months since I posted anything here. I don’t often talk about my… Continue Reading
Speakers For The Dead
Dear Ren, By way of a terrible piece of timing, I have just got back from my daily walk drenched to the skin, and my skin exercised by the hailstorm… Continue Reading
Of Pestilence and Politics
Dear R, I’m so glad you’ve written to me. It’s been a long time, and I know that both you and I have been distracted from our correspondence by the… Continue Reading
An Accidental Century
All night he’s fought the urge to call her, to hear her voice, to go to her, to lose himself in her arms. Now, out in the middle, on the… Continue Reading
A birthday poem for a daughter alone in lockdown in London
THAT When the world falls apart Words get lost And we become fingerprints in the sand Thrown over by the wind. Corners are straightened, Straits fracture, and lines Are punctured… Continue Reading
The City
The city is a sea In the valley Of seven hills, And a library at its centre, By the gardens And their plants, And peace The centre of its gravity…. Continue Reading
The Aftermath
So I have dragged myself into another spurious new year, and, tired to my bones, long for something different, something completely new. Not this same old same old village, however… Continue Reading
This Mountain of Life
Dear, dear Ren, When you wrote to me in June, I did actually start writing back. I have the scribbled draft in one of my notebooks (behind me in a… Continue Reading
Brecht and Diderot and the internet
Dear Ren, Sorry not to have written back sooner. Ever since I got back from the US, I seem to have been doing nothing but day job work, volunteer commitments,… Continue Reading