a note to Hilary

a note to Hilary Tonight there are no flowers but a girl’s kindness.She brought them underhand: sometimes we kissed,sometimes we talked with worry and honesty,I who had been, she who would be a student. (We painted part of a dingy room together.)And now as pink clouds...

Magdalen Tower

Magdalen Tower Full square you stand aloft, a circling cloud behind your spires, a giant, which only the foreigner watches and admires. Rock-old, eternal, smiling, grand – from human toil aloof, of good a symbol, holding for impiety, reproof. In humble harmony...

Ivy-Tendril

Ivy-Tendril An ivy-tendril climbing a wall felt the dust and waited for berries, and while waiting its soul was refreshed by the idle clamour of the lost snowflake… Gentle snow, fall through the ivy! But there is no ivy. The front of the college I attended was covered...

Lady Harpsichord

Lady Harpsichord This is the way I think of you: robin-song soft and sweet, a breath of fresh air, and a handful or two of red and white seed. Written after Frances, my first girlfriend, decided it wasn’t on. There’s a story behind the title: I was staying with a...

To Exile

To Exile for Deirdre My life has been yours from an early age when first you keened a plainsong to my years, a prelude starred with lust and shot with rage, an aftermath of silence and slow tears. For when with quickened step I took the floor I tripped before...

Villanelle

Villanelle Comfort the past with thoughts you do not know the mournful tenor of uncertainty, and shelter in the joy of saying so. The voice evokes a pain it dare not show. The mind contains a jewel it cannot see. Comfort the past with thoughts you do not know. Pain is...