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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