Two of my poems have just been published in The Writers Journal – Doors edition. Available for purchase at Amazon (Kindle or paperback)

An uncommon future

Since the elders told me I only remember myths or dreams,
I’m not sure what past I share with you.
Often enough, until now,
I assumed a shared memory space,
a common time.

But if none of it was real
it means we can be anything,
now and in the future,
because the past is only what we conjure
from hatred and desire.

The challenge now is to grab this thing,
this weightless freehold,
this rule change,
and enter this corridor of a thousand doors
and dare to knock on them all.

I want in my remaining years
to say the unsayable and deliver the unaddressed
and release the never-to-be,
before it can hide in safe corners,
waiting for something-to-turn-up.

For time is the only kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
And if we have no common past
we must have an uncommon future.
 
Bach to the future

The boy at the window nods to himself,
noting the half-empty whisky bottle
and the last century headphones
and the old man’s arms waving,
and the wooden spoon in hand
and the closed eyes
and the knitted brow.
On the side table,
sits an ashtray full of butts, an empty glass,
a tattered paperback
with a chocolate wrapper as a bookmark
and an ancient wallet.
On the floor,
a half-eaten bowl of pasta sits, congealing.
The boy slides silently
through the always unlocked door,
empties the wallet of all its cash,
bar twenty dollars,
and pads, in his stolen Nikes,
into the welcoming night.
As Bach’s ‘Toccata and Fugue in D Minor’
fades into the applause of The Proms audience,
the old man stirs, re-fills his glass, lights a cigarette,
and hopes the boy will buy some food.