Bleach and black water patch the hillside – burnt heather beside the path, which winds aimlessly away from the soldiers’ bridge beneath which we sheltered There are no fences here: the real country keeps hold, hiding its destinations In a…
Read: Some small secret
Yes, there is chanting here behind the howl of the occasional jet and the child crying in the café The cowled monks of Rievaulx dance lightly between the stones, making music as the rain stutters and dies You touch them,…
Read: Rievaulx Abbey
The other day I popped into Suffolk Poetry Festival for a couple of hours. It was held at the John Peel Centre in Stowmarket, and we got there by train. We left Norwich in blazing sunshine, and by Diss the…
Water kills by volume filling space, forcing out air, extinguishing breath but also by weight and as I sit alone for a snatched moment on beige bleached rocks strung out like forgotten connections and watch the False Bay breakers heave…
Read: False Bay
I may be wrong, but I suspect that if I was walking in the city somewhere, minding my own business, and a building fell on me, my wife would attribute the resulting fatality to my not eating the right food….
Below the hill where garden olives blossom in the heat and sleep comes easily to some pain slides like sour oil around the rocks kissing the soul colouring the night In the distance soldiers look for signs on unfamiliar paths…
Read: Gethsemane
Is this a crucifixion or a resurrection sky? Is it the sky he was pinned to like a butterfly skin running with blood clouds stained sunset-red? Or is it the ash-black, volcano-scarred sky that lets no life through? Darkness at…
Read: Easter Sky
You sit in the light: a breeze from the window touches your hair, your face in shadow You turn a page: the tilt of your head changes – you are almost smiling You raise your fingers to your lips: they…
Read: Baptised in the book
Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, 87, the legendary activist and newt-chaser, has emerged from hiding to attack plans to cripple and exploit motorists in Norwich and elsewhere. Mr Houseago was once voted the person with the most influence on Norfolk life,…
Footprints in the snow give us away as we climb through the overarching woods and up to the temple with ice on its steps Like echoes, light rays bounce off thin surfaces, the scarred and sacred skin above the caverns…
Read: Grinlow Hill