Creative Writing

"hey dark eyes..."

(Poem, unpublished, Mar 2021)

I heard a memory the other day,

Its song took me out of the present

And into the past

– It took me out of the cold of my room,

Out of the frost of February

It pulled me back

To the night we saw them play

Over in Bristol on a Wednesday,

Your dark eyes were filled with tears,

As we sang. We sang and cried as if

Each breath we were fighting for the next.

Later, in the darkness of your room

We were left panting:

At our songs of love and loss.

I cried that Wednesday because I thought I lost you,

And yet here is Wednesday, except this time it is forever

And what seemed found then, is lost now

Always.

Auto//Mobile

(Poem, unpublished, October 2020)

A fleeting glimpse, a shadow glancing off glass,

The corporeal flicker of the car as it glides,

A reflection in the shopfronts of the headlamp’s glimmer,

The recognition of ‘me’, embodied in the glow.

It isn't you

(Poem, unpublished, May 2021-February 2025)

It isn’t you.

I wish it had been

and for so long I had wanted it to be.

But it isn’t you.

You won’t be the face that I look over to,

Across the pillow, as we lie in the light of the morning sun

Aged thirty-three and found. But fuck,

– you really had me there:

I was twenty-one and I thought I saw my whole life spread out

Before me, like I was standing on a cliff before the sea,

At the foot of the beach path, and as far as I could see

The waves danced out in the sunlight, with not a cloud

In sight.

But it won’t be you,

Another person will have my feelings.

Another face will be the spark that ignites my smile.

For a while I was

lost

(like a paper boat at sea)

at the knowledge that it wasn’t you,

For a time, I regretted that I had allowed it to be you – when

That someone else was out there – that I had given so much

To the wrong person. But what good is regret?

We were so young, and yet we were in love and what happens once,

Can happen again except differently, and I won’t know the difference yet

Except it will not be you.

London, beneath the surface

(Poem, unpublished, November 2023)

Not fast enough,

I tumble home.

The rolling taps of the railway track

Like echoes, enter my dreams.

Rocked by the tube

To a whirring lullaby:

This clay is my cradle

And I am made, here,

Once again.

At the water

(Poem, from The Practice of Letting Go in III Parts, unpublished, May 2021)

On the edge of the sea,

How the ripples reach

The arms of the harbour:

How small, how far they go

I watch them run, skipping

Out, let loose towards the sky.

How free? How open, when let go;

The barrage is open,

The mouth of the tiger

– How she lets go:

I watch the sun catch the sails,

Hear the Severn catch the rocks

I close my eyelids and count to seven

– I wonder:

How free it would feel to let you go.

Couplet

(Poem, unpublished, May 2021)

Through ebb and flow, hold what you know:

Hold the now, before it goes.

I have

(Poem, unpublished, April 2021-May 2022)

I have watched the shadows dance around the window,

I have felt the tides change within and without,

I have been without fear, and I have held it tightly,

I have held you close, and I have let you go,

I have leant up against the pillows and watched you,

I have watched your curls fall behind your ear

and down your back following its shape,

I have felt whole and half – and like the moon I know that neither is permanent,

I have seen the snow fall on the bark of bare trees like mountain ranges,

and in that moment

I have seen branches spring and blossoms bloom,

I have watched several evenings sink behind the hills

and seen them mirrored in the river’s waves, and

I have pondered each one waxing warmer, as they waned and

I have paused, and I have wondered how many more times I will do both as I drift ever

forward,

This point in space and time will end,

But more will follow as I continue to grow.