The inspiration for this poem came from….a pair of gloves. And my wife Ann’s kindness. Ann always buys multiple presents for most of the family, especially at Christmas. We were...
As the Covid lockdown began, the world seemed to settle into silence – a disturbing and worrying silence for those of us living in towns and cities and used to...
When my daughter Claire and son-in-law Steven decided to marry, they chose the extraordinarily beautiful Lake District as the location for their wedding ceremony. Steven hired a hotel – the...
This short poem reflects the fact that both my son Andrew and I write poetry and sometimes collaborate on our poems. I have often wondered whether this ability is inherited....
Alfie is my grandson, Olivia’s younger brother. In this poem, written when Alfie was two years old (less than a thousand suns), the longer lines enfold the shorter ones to...
It is a villanelle written for my granddaughter, Olivia, with a nod to Dylan Thomas (see the start of the fifth tercet.) He, of course, wrote one of the most...
The first poem I wrote as an adult was for my daughter, Claire Louise. We were going to name her Samantha, but thankfully changed our minds. (Try rhyming Samantha with...
This was inspired by the 30th anniversary of the first moon landing and written for my son Andrew, who watched the historic event on a battered old black and white...
As a small boy I was forced by my mother’s partner, Bert, to watch him shooting blackbirds at the end of the garden, after he’d put bread down to entice...
One of my boyhood memories is of returning to a wrecked home after Bert and Irene’s final fight, to find my pet mice dead in their Woolworth’s biscuit tin, left...
