Still Life – Travel
I unpick my layers of skin,An old wound healing,Softened rawness,The scab gone, some moreOf my DNA scatteredOver the cutting room floorsOf my travelling. It doesn’t hurt,This unravelling of what I… Continue Reading
Browsing Tag: poem
Knowing – Kara’s 13th birthday poem
You fly out into the silence Of your paint, of your words, Up to the stars and the vacuum, Down into the centre of your world, Cut yourself adrift from… Continue Reading
the closer, 1912
flies in my gutfire like a leechin my facethe wind marching against mein this dark half yearand everywhere is north nothing left ofsummer and winterno betweena scattering of worldup thereoutside… Continue Reading
Scott’s Last Diary Entry, Undated
One of our watches was wrong,Changed by the weather’s ferocious gnawAt the metal we trusted.Did we forget to wind themAnd lose track of our last days,Count too many hours? I… Continue Reading
Side by Side – Alex’s 11th birthday
How has time changed us? We never used to be friends, You the hotheaded daughter, Me the remote father, uninterested In tantrums or dolls. Now, we spend so much time… Continue Reading
Framheim, 1912
It is here we kept the whales at bay,Here we built a home not a hut,Hung and painted and decorated itWith memory and a little hope. Around it we dug… Continue Reading
Scott At The Pole, 17th January 1912
We plant our flag into the frozenTip of the planet, a failed gestureBecause someone else was here first. We try to seem hopeful not weary,Successful not beaten, but the picturesWon’t… Continue Reading
Running Away
Had we done things differently thenWould now have changed?A word in another place,A transposition of a scowl for a smile,A hand up instead of a push away? Time drags and… Continue Reading
Amundsen at the Pole, 14th December 1911
This is not what I had dreamt of.My childhood’s goal is half a worldAway, at the top of the globe, north.But it was stolen from me, andI needed to succeed…. Continue Reading
Charlotte’s birthday poem 2011
A New Language I tried to think of a new languageIn my old ageTo tell you I love youBut to build itWould leave you unbelievingNot able to understand. So I… Continue Reading