One

Star bright

Lantern-glow

Carols drifting

Candy cane dancing

Evergreen branches sway

Joy gathers around tables

Mistletoe brought home from forest

Year-end turning, warmth clear through the frost

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outstaring a blank wall 

You stand before a wall.
It waits, blank as withheld breath.

What hovers over you?
Drafts unpinned,
stories unspoken,
videos sealed,
pages chasing horizons
that never arrive.

Perfection dithers—
a mask for delay.
What if you placed
one imperfect mark?
What if you let motion
carve its shape?

The wall gathers:
crooked sketches,
half-born concepts...

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Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (reprise)

They set forth again, the fishermen three,

their chair of seasoned steel, rolling free,

their wheels carrying stories gathered

from seas where frolic once travelled.

Gold in their hair, not from youth’s frame

but from the long sun’s patient flame,

they cast their nets not for silver schools

but for recollection’s wispy spool...

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The poem bares its teeth: a hyena,
laughter breaking in jagged bursts,
circling the margins,
menace felt in scuffling shadows.

Then it rises upright: a meerkat,
eyes darting across horizons,
paws quick in sudden scurry,
a hesitant vigil before burrowing.

Between circling and scurry,
menace and play entwine,
scarfing fragments into chorus
more than jotted lines on a page.

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“What Fox Says”

Fox says: apprivoiser won’t be possessed

but a slow-weave of absence into thread

you tilt among the stars

and i trace the outline of your missing shape

knowing the outline itself still abides

there the sketch suspends

hollowed lines tremble while

i cradle the paper as though

the blank within it were the closest

i could come to you

tu ...

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“More Than Scribbles”

The pen does not speak—
it holds its silence in a chamber,
a reservoir where sentences
float unformed,
dark rivers stalled
before the mouth of paper.

Each droplet is a thought
waiting for gravity’s compunction,
a poem in liquid pause,
its capillary compression
held at the narrow throat of the nib.

The pipeline presses with pressure,
yet nothing escapes—
un...

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empty nest

Stairs lengthen
with the seasons,
names slip like
coins in torn cloth.

A calendar lies scraped,
its edges powdered with absence.

Looking‑glass memory fogs,
reflections scatter into hollow rooms.
Between heartbeats—
quiet nestles within its cage.




.

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In the meadow of impossible mornings,

the daisies exhale in a trumpet’s blush,

petals fluttering like embarrassed fans as

the air fills with laughter disguised as wind.

Rosehip hiccups, clouds of lavender smoke,

their thorns rattling like spoons in a drawer.

Lilies bow low, releasing secret choruses,

a brass band hidden in their stems.

Children chase the gusts,

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"A Slow Turning"

The stairs lengthen each season,
though the house remains the same.
Names slip from my tongue—
like coins through a frayed pocket,
clinking faintly in corridors I no longer patrol.

I misplace mornings,
folding them into afternoons
that arrive already weary.

The calendar stares back blank,
its squares scraped clean,
eraser dust gathering at the margins.

Onc...

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So stain—
as marks that remain longer than intent,
and hesitation pressed into the grain.

Second guess,
doubt’s small fracture widening,
as though the Voice were drowned,
as though we mistook the silence
for absence.

But sustain is not the clean note held—
it is the rough edge,
the falter carried forward,
the scar that steadies the hand.

And then—
awareness r...

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"Dusk"

The town exhales—
a soft geometry of roofs and fields
folding into shadow.
He sits where the light
still lingers,
jacket creased like memory,
hands easy on the stone.

The church steeple leans
into the horizon’s stillness,
a single bird
drawn to the vanishing point.

No declarations.
Just the red of his collar
holding warmth
as the sky turns
from blue...

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"_underscore_"

the line does not end

it waits — a low bar,

a held breath _ not yet

beneath the sentence

the underscore drags its quiet spine,

pulling the eye forward,

asking the voice to stumble.

not in capitals,

but in undersong —

the half‑said,

the word leaning into tomorrow.

today’s poems fracture,

splinter on enjambment;

but th...

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“Gather up the fragments,
that nothing be lost”—
so even crumbs
become a silo of abundance.

The night keeps count
of every restless turning,
each tear stoppered
in an unseen flask,
as if sorrow itself
were vintage,
kept for the day of pouring.

What we labour for,
though hidden,
is never in vain—
the soil remembers
every hand that tills it,
every seed pressed down
...

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between the measure and its lingering chord  

a pause leans into itself—  

not absence, but a held breath  

threading the room with quiet weight.  

chairs remember their occupants,  

dust rehearses its slow descent,  

and the air waits,  

as if something might begin again.  

… and the night forgets its name  

the silence gathers in the rafters,  

an a...

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The world dims—
light falters, seas fall silent,
love cools to ash,
and memory frays into dust.

Yet in the hiatus,
a sudden blush of petals—
sakura, trembling in the air,
a brief rebellion of beauty
against the certainty of decay.

For a heartbeat,
the streets are rivers of pink snow,
  strangers pause,
    eyes lifted,
as if eternity had cracked open.

But th...

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Stand in your own light—
even when the lamps go out.

Carry your silence like a lantern,
not as a burden,
but as a map.

The world will tell you
to wait for rescue,
to lean on borrowed fire.
Smile, and keep walking.

Every step you take
is a small rebellion.
Every breath you claim
is proof you are enough.

Do not beg the t...

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I fold the silence into paper,
address it to your absence,
and let the ink wander
where my voice could not.

Every word is a bridge half‑
built across distance,
collapsing into the river
before you ever arrive.




.

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“Rusted Edges, Burning Gears"
 

The gears don't just turn;

they gnash—teeth of industry,

blood-stained from forgotten hands.

Whispers don’t drift;

they crack like breaking glass,

but no one listens.

Faces sink into hollow screens,

cogs spinning louder than their voices.

You scratch at the edges,

but the rust doesn’t heal—

it spreads, then con...

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At the pier’s end,

a lantern swayed in the wind,

its light holding back

the dark by inches.

The tide had gone out hours ago,

leaving the seabed bare —

a map of ridges and hollows

drawn by hands no one remembers. 
Somewhere in the shallows,

a fish turned once,

as if to read the lantern’s flicker

like a message meant for it alone.

When the wind drop...

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I am not the benevolent Oz, great or otherwise —
no levers behind velvet, no emerald gates to dazzle the credulous —
only the stubborn machinery of my own making,
a few cogs greased with irony,

    a crank that squeaks in the key of

                 don’t take this too seriously, 
                         until the hum you mistake for a hymn 
                    becomes the ...

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Between Shelves

The air here is thick with the weight of almosts.
Books lean toward one another,
spines whispering the titles they wish they’d been given.

On the floor, a stack of drafts waits without complaint.
Some are missing their middles,
                            others their endings,
but all of them know the sound of a reader’s breath
when they’ve found the sentence wor...

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an unread poem
is unwritten poetry —
ink still dreaming in the vein,
a slow current beneath the skin
where no light has yet entered.

Pages breathe in the dark,
their margins uncreased
by any gaze,
their fibres holding the faint salt
of the tree’s first rain.

They live in the quiet tide
before the pen descends,
in the pause
between heartbeat and word,
where silence ...

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"reader, read her"

at 2 AM, your screen dims then brightens— 
a single stanza pulses in the corner, 
waving like a lantern in the fog.

you swipe past: new playlists to follow, 
coupons to clip, endless feeds to scroll, 
poets you’ve liked, genres you’ve bookmarked.

but she—this blinking poem—leans closer,
her words unfurl, constellations expanding, 
beckoning you beyond your ...

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Poems for Money, and No Kicks for Free


Verse 1
The air smells of printer’s ink and cold coffee,
and the page stares back like a shopfront window
where the mannequins wear my metaphors,
price tags swinging from their wrists.

I used to think the words were a kind of weather —
blowing in from nowhere,
soaking me through for the sheer joy of it.
Now they arrive in invoices,
in neat...

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They name me Cleaver, though I am no hand,
but the patient edge of centuries,
a blade honed by the Southern swell,
by wind that tastes of iron and kelp.

I split the dolerite as kin are split —
not in malice, but in the slow necessity
of tide and time,
each fracture a journal of what was kept,
and what was carried away.

Below, the broth seethes —
foam thick as ghost‑milk,
stea...

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parched wind, salt‑tongued

from the far edge of the bay,

licks the last drift of

mauve jacarandas.

in the tin‑roof blush,

I hear the slow heartbeat

of soil— patient, cracked,

still keeping the memory of rain.

I walk the market’s narrow spine,

hands grazing mango skins,

the laughter of vendors lifting

like myna birds into a sky

just beginning to remembe...

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gate mist

in the hour

before names

footstep /

echo /

gone

puddle edge

holds the sky

too still

.

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Once I was starling voice at dawn, 
A flock of chimed echoes on my tongue,
Wheezing whistles on choralled lawn,
Each verse a mimic so sweetly sung.

Now I’m a lyrebird lost in the brush,
Framing my solos in shadowed boughs,
With heart unfolding in trembling rush,
A lonesome lilting with hidden vows.

With cheeslets and flummox in my beak,
I sift the flock’s bright feathers from my cor...

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It was nearly midnight

when he slipped out of bed,

careful not to wake her.

The house exhaled its silence—

walls warm with sleep,

timber creaking

from the day’s last heat.

He padded to the kitchen

in bare feet, opened the cupboard

where li’l miss had hidden

a note for him the day before:

“I love you even when you forget milk.”

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i lean into the salt wind,

fingers tracing faint ridges

in damp sand.

“Where is my oyster?” i ask the horizon,

its answer swallowed by surf.

Kester Reed waits behind a driftwood break,

taps the shell-shards underfoot,

listens for that hollow note

that might be its name.

“What would it be, even?” he murmurs,

searching for shape in shadows.

O...

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"streambound" 

In the stream before thought, 

a silver thread spills from a cloud’s open palm. 

It beads the air with patient syllables, 

falling into the current where our minds already drift.

We wade in — ankles claimed by the cold, 

our boots drinking more than we do. 

Above, heaven’s ladle tips again, 

its rain stitching ripples into the moving mirror.

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"flight mode"

The higher they climbed, the quicker they blurred,  

Wrapped in code and status conferred.  

Juno sat still, mapped the ache,  

Her descent revealed what ascent forsake.  

A world within—a pulse, a thread—  

Flight not above, but through instead.

.

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"The Impossible Turn"

To hold what harms, to face without flinching, to shape warmth from wire.

To drop the name, to meet the eyes, to let edges soften.

To burn the mold, to kneel in ash, to rise listening.

Not conquest. Not perfection. Only forward motion.

.

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"Clockwork Reverie"

Tick tock — the echo mocks,

Time slips through paradox,

A ghost in velvet gloves, unseen,

Dancing deep where thoughts convene.

Murky depths and rhyming schemes,

Fractured poets chase their dreams,

Feathers inked with crimson lore,

Minutes bleeding evermore.

The spool unwinds, the tongue forgets,

What once was sung now drips regr...

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“untethered”

shelves of faces wheel past our names

we dissolve on blinking glass—

silent exits logged but never traced

by the circuits that once claimed us

our missteps vanish in tangled code,

no pardon queued;

the platform shrugs in empty bits,

leaving apologies half-typed and gone

perhaps erasure spills relief:

we unhook from worn-out errors,

...

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late winter's bright skies 

buds and sprouts begin to form

New Year's vibrant song.

in the gentle breeze,  

mem'ries sprout with new life,  

herald new year's joy.

New Year’s breath tendrils

it must now be that season

melting snow and all

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Through the moor she whistles,

her presence a crystal shard,

slicing through the night air

scented with damp earth and pine.

Windows tremble, trees yield,

cries ripple across the barren plains.

Her voice, an echo of distant storms,

resonates from the ocean's depths,

a spectral cry that chills the bones.

She strides under the moon’s watchful eye,

her shadow...

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Be still my soul, in tranquil night's embrace 

Hold tight my heart, as shadows softly play

Let not this fleeting moment slip away

In whispered sighs, your gentle breath I trace

The stars above, like fleeting hopes, do gleam

Yet, in your arms, I dare to brave the dark

For, time may steal, but loves eternal spark

Frail life to linger, wrapped within a dream.

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Happy new year to write out loud!

A poetry site standing tall & proud

So much versatility & lovely folk

I can assure you all, this site is no joke!

So, all the best for the year ahead 

And we toast to those in their heavenly bed 🥂

Let's hope next year your wishes come true

And peace, love & hope is the light that comes through.

All the best 

Stephen x

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A decade on, decade long
a journey
I’ve been filling this space with lines
you can follow them if you like

I’ve gone from ‘putting out’ only
to taking in, to loving others’ work
and learning
I hear their voices in my own words now

I’ve been leaving myself behind
these past ten years
writing wrongs
trying to find that spark

It’s said ‘don’t stay in any place too long
when you’re ...

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Rules a plenty and all so we can maintain order of our art of thought
Express yourself through a template that someone else just published
Middle class lives, aspired and achieved and desired and lived
I will give you 50 lines today and 50 lines tomorrow and 50 more on your fucking birthday

No more romance without some cash and an agreement now 
Negotiate in the car or bar or online, but no...

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cleverly shunned
this clever lad
who once was
quite celebrated
applauded, even; 
that once and
clever tyke —

little did he know
one forward day
when he'd've all
up and grown
dependable lads 
are what's wanted

clever 'uns were

interesting enough
for a bit of a larf but
just a tad annoying;
when things gotta
be done — go figure
dependability and

cleve...

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Swansea waves words at passing poets

The twenty-fifth day is long and in others souls,

A week later we enter the next chapter with

New raging goals.

Kissing capitalism's ass and not mine

Highway traffic moves in waves,

Or should that be it crawls like a crab

Marrying a woman from East Texas

She cooked Christmas pudding for dinner each night

In peanut and r...

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An apt public hanging, packed treasure

Not like mine

The past zooms into focus in blow-up

In camera obscura

No-one spoke,

And the silence said volumes

Spuds and carrots and don't forget

To pick up the horseshit!

All sit in Domino rolls

I never told my students of stories

Waiting to escape

Pictures of matchstick men

Waiting to escape...

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A riotous toast to Queen Victoria

the lighter the better, under the table

black dagger stabs my heart

Oh! To be in Anglesea;

so beautiful - 

death, rape, law, sacrifice. The more things change...

And still the penny rolls like a sunset

cascading what it simply used to mean.

We worry not, for our lady still holds

the sky whilst she sings.

The anxiou...

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Be grateful for the dark days

And when one comes in sight

Don't waste your time in wondering

When life will turn out right.

Be grateful for the dark days

And when one comes along

Forget about despairing

Over how it all went wrong

Be grateful for the dark days

They're made to make you glad

When everything about them

Makes you think you shou...

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