Our family had some trepidation
Burying my grandmother, Nina,
With her mother, Jean,
in the

There just are some intricate pieces of my skin,
That bring me to loathe my flesh.
Some days I

6∙18∙13

When I see the heavy equipment machines,
A dozer, a digger, a graceful backhoe,
Then my

05∙30∙13

His bones poke through his cotton gown.
His skin is scarred and bruised.
But those

02∙03∙09

With skin as thin as sewing pins
and eyes as black as Oreos,
but smiling with a fiery

I live under guard and watch and key
As I must exist under a false face
Death comes with the

My stomach is twisted, knotted, deformed and evil.
I want it to hide, I want it to leave my brain

You would think I’d figured it out,
But I still don’t know what I want,
Or what I want to

So far in life and death,
With my woes, my dreams, my breath,
These, the shortcomings of a fool.

A home is where the
tears still flow
flowing down the house we
know, a home would
weep into our

Sparks jettisoning into the crisp blackness,
A vivid orange against the backdrop of ebony

Crests they write in icon,
a silence we see, a history
we assume as it stamps heritage
into -

He is y garddwr.
His children ended up as wild
uncultured brambles but
his fuchsias are

Is not the first
nor the last

just somewhere
I am
between all
the others.

That's OK
I

Rose gold on a gossip wind.
Carrow family,
trawling lightly on the spin,
duck-feathered
pillows

Dry sand running through small fingers
Breakers drumming and sea kelp that lingers
Sea breeze

The hard intransigent surface
Resolved itself to form
In some primordial age
Crystallizing

Here they hang, side by side,
filling my heart with joy and pride
- trousers, shirts and socks

In Belize the dark night is warm, women sway against palms.
Their lovers croon along with the disco

morning’s midnight cold
to Gatwick’s gate
If I get there early you
won’t escape me
and every

What does it matter,
Who we take after?
As long as we do better
Than what you weathered?

What

Kids, Winter's night is taking us for a walk!
Flurried in excitement, my explorers don't

Great food, and smiling faces
shadows dance in candle flame
holding hands before our

On my bed she lies, shadowy ball of fur,
she serenely licks her paw,
corrects me with her claw
or

I remember you, did I,
When you beckoned me
Back then so young was I,
Frail you seemed to be,
A

In your leaving of that morning, we were the ones that you forgot,
Discarded in your quiet rush to

Do you know what you do
the reason she is broke in two?
Words they sting like acid
running down

What scares me the most is
that there is nothing inherently wrong with me.
Just some craziness

Small hands holding puppies;
smiling to camera, innocent,
sweet little girls unaware of
life's

How was I wrong?
You came, confiding us to the limits of our boundary.
Being overly keen on my

My old father’s bald summer head is French-polished

by slick sun, brilliant oil.
A glossy

The hand that feeds
Is the hand that bleeds
And the hand that needs
You the most. -----
When

That young Spirit died
no longer able to live
in the machine
of the material world
His

He positions his sight
With suspicious malachite.
Fighting for her approval,
Justifying his

I feel like having a go
At whoever set my lifes path.
You've given me so much hurt
And left in

Wherever you are
I know
that you'll be making trouble
you have a knack for that
but wherever you

He sits here thinking, and waits
mind travelling distant shores
outwardly a prisoner
yet inside

In the cold, harsh light of day
after the last beat is heard
and the pain has ended for some
a

Journalists beheaded
Hard workers laid off
Racism prevails
And Discrimination rises
While my

The sun rises, the sun sets,
Days follow days in succession
We try to make a real difference
in

Standing near a train stop
Looking for the person I’m trying to spot
They could be anywhere within

My precious girl is sixteen,
And she is everything to this weak man.
God but I love her and it’s

LUDLOW

(for Charmian)

House of colours and images,
wooden walls and antiques,
photographs

Born into a world of deception,
Embraced in a life of abuse,
Tormented by a state of

Snow flakes fell peacefully from the sky 
The sound of the snow falling as my best friend sat by my

VOIDS
—a multivoice poem

The clocks tick
filling the quiet void
Time passes in this

We wait, expectantly, and then she arrives,
The golden sun comes out from behind the clouds
And

'THE FAMILY KNIGHT'

The root of a giant tree
Branches depend on
A rock to stand on
The king of