These are a few that I am working on at the moment. I have about 30 ideas for new poems, but finding the time to actually sit down a nd work through these things is a nightmare....some might say it's not worth the worry.


Travel Adapter
Room 110, Las Tres Palmeras, La Gomera, September 2005

Waking with a factor 20 hangover
at 4am.Time to get away from this,
to get somewhere to stop the mind turning over;
the brain’s throttle stuck.

You arrive at the destination
dressed like Alec Guinness in the River Kwai,
it will take light years to get this body
anything other than white.
You have a week.

Two days in,
and, like a drummer, the sun
has tightened our skins;
wound them in to create the perfect ouch
with every touch of cotton sheets.

The straw hat covered you face as you slept,
you woke with a red honeycomb.

Easing, and peeling your swimsuit down
in the shower later, the sea salt
being replaced by our own.
We could blame the heat,
I prefer to accept it.
Doing things only done on holiday.

Like Buzz Aldrin in flip-flops
you hope from rock to rock
over this lava, this moon country
to watch black crabs cling to the rocks.
If they let go, it’s next stop America,
you wonder if you would put the effort in.

Columbus used to stop here,
before setting off for his explorations.

After the battle of the travel adapter
you plan to throw your lot in with
the German hippies by the beach,
buy a set of bongos and just live on
the black sand and surf.


That walk across that black sand,
the sea delivering each tiny stone right to your feet,
you notice the way damp sand
looks like the invisible man walking on a carpet;
the way it turns a lighter shade
as the water is briefly pushed out.
You notice you have time to notice this.


Armitage Shanks

Softly, softly catchy monkey my arse.
Who’s got time for that these days, I ask you.
I was put out to grass,
But I swear I will out last you.

Like a tiger asleep
you’ve kept half an eye
on exactly which side
your bread’s buttered on,
maintained a stance in the eye of the storm
and kept more than a glance
on which directions the cookie crumbled.
Asked who’s batting or bowling
and from where the thunder rumbled,
taken note of what’s good for the goose;
seen what’s preferred by the gander.
You observed and calculated the sweet spot of your dander
and exactly how it’s raised.
Lord be praised,
you’ve chanced upon something.

The Letter

How long shall I sit here?
Gathering dust, watching coming and goings.
I know who’s been and gone
nestled here with listings for cinema showings,
take away menus, window cleaners
and improvements for your home

What am I?
Could I be the letter of someone you once loved,
all handwritten on parched vellum,
scented paper or plain ripped from a notebook?
Not the typed straight out of computers
and printers stuff of bills and advertising,
not even given a backwards look.

How long will my message last?
What am I worth to you?
Have you moved on?
if so, then how and where to?

“Am I an offer of earthbound riches,
am I something someone is selling?
I’m staying stock still and enveloped.
I am not telling.”