A few more poems from my Poems in Print file.

The Comets Tale.

My heart is ice. My skin is debris
Wrapped in frozen gasses.
Diffuse grains flow around me in
Their millions as my nucleus glows.
A hard bright nugget at my core.
I relentlessly pursue my orbit.

That swinging ellipse that slingshots
Me from the black depths. I begin to
Absorb warmth. To grow my shining
Cape as solar rays bathe me. I travel on.
My coma becomes a flaring tail that
Glows in a multitude of colours. I sear

Across the heavens with particles
Sloughing away to glimmer and shine,
Like jewels in my wake. I blossom, flare
And flow, ever moving into space. I am
Viewed in many ways, through science
And superstition. I am portent, I am periapt.

Omen and prophecy. My sweep across
The sky is watched in awe and wonder.
My names are many, bestowed by man.
I have been seen. Birthed by nature
Immortalised by astrologers and I have
Had my time in the sun.


The Woman in the Raincoat.


They call her ‘mad old spinster’.
Watch her walk bare-headed in the rain.
Their whispers follow her like
Buzzing flies about her head.
She talks to herself as she strides.

‘Dried up’ they say. As if lack of
moisture is a sin, an aberration.
They pass judgement in ignorant
careless, corner-conversation.
Her coat flaps open unheeded.

She knows that soulless desiccation
Means tears are spent.
The wells of grief-wrenched liquid
Empty now. She walks every day.
Oblivious to sly-eyed glances.

She recounts the words
She would have liked to say.
Recalls the face she will not see again.
Compared to her pain
Mere gossip is insignificant.


Water Dowsing.

‘Don’t think, feel’ he said.
As he placed the rods in my hands.
‘Hold them loosely-don’t grip.
Let them have their way.

Suspend your disbelief and
Let a little of the primitive creep in’.
So I did. I walked forward,
Elbows to hips, base of thumb

To base of thumb. The rods held
like delicate eggs. Forefinger
and thumb making the ring
Wherein the rods might pivot.

I stepped slowly, carefully,
Not knowing what to expect.
Hope-and doubt- vied for the
Best seat in this new theatre

Of experience. Then, a twitch.
A half-felt friction as the rods
Turned in my hands. The left
Curving clockwise, the right

Swivelling to cross it.
The hair on my neck stirred
Like grass under wind.
My wrists tensed as the rods

Fluttered and connected, pulling
Down in a pointing finger of gravity.
A joining of forces as old and
Elemental as time.

My breath left me of its own volition.
Freed from its subconscious restraint.
I felt a surge of almost supernatural joy.
‘My god’, I whispered.
‘It works. It really, really, works.’






Lost and found.


I found this tiny little thing, like a leaf
Or maybe a dried up spider but
The colour was wrong.
It looked familiar but I could not place it.
It settled into the palm of my hand.

I lifted it with a fingernail. Puzzled over it.
Peered at it. Tried to hold it but
It was so delicately small I could only
Let it lie flat. I heard a whisper in my ear.

A mere suggestion of a voice.
A light pressure on my shoulder.
I sensed a presence as I looked to my left.
Then the fairy said
“May I have my glove back”?