Welcome to my website. I write poetry, novels and short stories, and non-fiction. You can find details here of my published work, and sample poems and extracts.
My most recent poetry collection is If You Want Thunder (Smokestack, 2021). This poem is from a sequence called Sea Fret.
Spite
the sea beats at the rock-door with thin white hands
shouting why did you disown me take me back
the cave too old to answer blocks its ears
with mine-spoil bird-shit no-one can bear to hear
the sea shrieking revenge overturning ferries
snatching a child off a cliff and twirling him
in swaddling-clothes of spindrift holding him
tight like a mascot flinging him into pieces
flint-axes silver
coins the face scoured off into history
until even the tide begins to tire
its voice grown hoarse its memory uncertain