Events and sudden absences Being inhabitants of older vintage,we pass on by, for the most part,and rarely meet. Any conversationis likely to be short, could be the firstfor years […]

Saying Our Goodbyes The ward sister points us to your single room.It seems that you’re asleep as we come in but when Dad leans across and says your nameyour eyes […]

Arrival Before the Rose Dream Ends He says he’ll arrive in Portland tomorrow.It’s his turn to pay—In the silence before the restaurant opens,he arrives early. A self-serve hot pot,steam rising […]

TFI Friday…Oh, it’s Tuesday FYI, it’s day three of a one day pow wow,via an all-hands to the pump conference call,with space and sufficient time built in as standardfor conflabs […]

For the fifth event in the Wild Court Reading Series, we are delighted to welcome acclaimed poet Sascha A. Akhtar. Sascha is the author of seven metaphysical poetry collections, a […]

Flute Lesson Played with real feeling,my examiner wrote. I envied cellists and pianists –they didn’t require one breath to flowfrom their lungs, up tremulous throat, to mouth,through neatly-aligned embouchure to […]

Unfulfilled Playlist Inside the algorithm,no ratty-looking bloke hogs the ‘just-in’ section.Index finger flicking past clear plastic-coatedLPs, one album at a time. Animated mouthexpressing experienced appraisal of eachand every record he […]

The Mountain The mountain is a hostage-taker.By the time you reach the summit it may already be too late.When the path forks follow the stones and the moss,but listen to […]

Delphi

Lent It can be as simple as this: the sound of someone hooveringmakes you turn around from your desk to look, and thereon your bedroom wall is an impossible sunlit […]

Undertow Eyes wide in the dark, I listen. A thud upon the hull,drumming, like a cold caller stoic at a bolted door.I lift the hatch and go outside. Bright starsdulled […]

These poems were originally published on Wild Court in March 2022. Susumu The sun beat down on Tokyo intensely:Forty-five in the shade. The matsu treeStretched out across Susumu’s back garden,Providing […]

  Visiting Mary I visit the place I imagine her in.I practice walking the tall grassto the stony house,the bit of rock they’ve left, a candleto mark she was there,that […]

  Marginal for Michael Brown And let us not dispraise the quiet manwho on a hundred acres sets back tenfor voles to tunnel in, finches to congregate,for beasts too slender […]

Three Silences Bone dust and cold thick haunting silence restswhere pews and people creak and break the peaceand echo of my prayer, the echo of the priestdark wood pervades. Dark […]

For the fourth event in the Wild Court Reading Series, we are delighted to welcome celebrated US-based poet, translator and literary critic Kimberly Johnson. Kimberly will be reading and in […]

New Year Doors are locked to neighbours nowat midnight on Hogmanay,the ‘first-fit’ a thing of the past:my grandparents’ house heaving with guests,the coal fire crackling, the craicmixing with smoke in […]

  Death Still Walks In ‘In the old days news of it traveled by foot.’— Billy Collins, ‘Death’ Here’s how to miss the deathof a friend whose houseyou glide by […]

Every Particle Attracts Another Dear (if I may) young Sperm Whale I recently received a letter beginning with‘Dear’. Four letters transforming a letter,travelling beyond a formal beginning to years of […]

Red Check Shacket I’d heard the stories: the timeon Cromer beach, some oozinghallucinated morning, whereamongst the bladder wrackand shreds of net, he founda jetsam blister pack of pillsand snorted every […]