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Pirate Days
The Honest Ulsterman
February 2018
She undresses by the lamplight.
He sits immobile in a chair wishing
he had a cigarette. Her bra is too
tight & leaves red marks across her
back & underneath her breasts when
she takes it off. She turns her back
to him as she slips out of her knickers,
bending slightly with one knee, one
pale alabaster arse cheek ringed by
shadow. He is a sailor all at sea.
She is a ship within a bottle...
A Queen in Repose
The 12 Poems of Christmas
E-book anthology
Lagan Online
December 2016
I wake in the bed where you have slept
since you were a girl. Late December morn,
the air filled with booze fumes and
Guinness farts, the room over-bright,
fairy lights still blinking. As I turn,
bleary-eyed, to cradle you, I see
that you have fallen asleep still
wearing the yellow paper crown...
2 poems, 10 tanka, 20 haiku/senryu
Alternante
Romania, Anull 3 nr. 4
October 2015
Hades & Aphrodite
Walking home along the lane.
& she is crying. Here we are
again, both of us, mourning inside.
There’s no moon in the sky.
Cypress trees loom over us.
She stops walking, turns her face
away. A moan escapes her lips.
I take her in my arms, cursing
the consequences of love.
Two poems
Lagan Press Online
Poetry Originals #5
June 2015
Sustenance
Bend your ear & listen closely
to the murmur of my heart.
A hummingbird has built her
nest there made from feathers,
leaves & thistledown.
I feel her wings thrum each
time you draw near.
Lie with me. We’ll coax the
nectar from our loins & feed
honey to her young.
Four poems
FourXFour #8
Spring 2014
What Remains
I touch it, trace the
scar with my finger, press
my lips to it, lay my
head between your
belly & your pubic
bone. This is all that
remains. The clothes we
saved for, argued over in
shops, accepted wrapped from
friends & relatives, are
gone now to charity
shops. The room we painted
the colour of the sky on a
spring morning we can’t
bring ourselves to
enter. Beyond that door there
is a stillness. Somewhere
within lie our hopes, our
dreams. Somewhere within
our future died.
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