Wild Court

Beethoven’s Sonata in C Minor It was the way he touched his mother’s neckthat first gave him the idea. Her vocal cordstrembled under his yet-delicate fingers,& he thought of that […]

Deceit I talk to you now more than I ever did;long chats about zen, or work, or musicwhile I walk the dog around Torside.Pausing we watch a deceit of lapwings,newly […]

Ash Wednesday The smudge of ashfrom a priest’s thumbmarked us. As we stepped awayfrom the altar steps,the forty days to come a test of our selected abstinence,giving up sweet thingsfor […]

  Below are two poems from Compass Light, the new collection from Hilary Davies, recently published by Renard Press. River People Some of them – have you noticed? – hardly […]

Audition I got my booster shot. The roostertrots out into the yard and throats a shout.Some huge truck beep-whines its lorry line of code.I’m about to compose an odefrom bedfast […]

Below are two poems from William Wootten’s new collection, Landline, forthcoming from Worple Press this October. Landline is Wootten’s first full-length collection in almost a decade, since You Have a […]

Lisa writes: The Scavenger project relies on the acrostic form to record my regular walks around the Darlands Nature Reserve near where I live in north London. The garden centre […]

Not before time will I climb the hillup to the Acropolis        then climb down again to sit about at a bar in Psyrilistening to jazz and sipping  […]

For Takamura Kotaro When the Bombs fall, and you listento the Emperor’s speech(almost opaquely formal,about “bearing the unbearable”),you think again of Chieko –now seven years dead –and certain phrases(perhaps from […]

In 1977 Sam Peckinpah, the writer and director, bought a plot of land in a remote part of Montana and had a cabin constructed. It was more a dream than […]

Window Her hand reaches through a slim shaft ofmorning sunlight falling across a goldsmith’swindow on the corner of a 1930s blockin the centre of town eighteen monthsinto the war, double […]

Meeting Olivia de Havilland On a perfect summer morning,Aunt Olive died. Age 96.She said her happiest daywas meeting Olivia de Havillandin 1964, “a peach.” Not her wedding to Uncle Sal,the […]

Piano tuner Your hands were the lastto stroke the dustfrom my yellowing keys,to lift my inlaid panels withlong-fingered practised ease.In dreams I feel your palms slide downmy scarred and creaking […]