The large and paunchy man, with straddled legs and slippered feet, paddling across a hotel floor to sit because he cannot stand, evokes...

The clock of his life had a slow tick And a large surprised white face, Which was seldom seen, Since it went better Face downward. It...

A late letter for Margaret So you have slipped away, Margaret, bequeathing us warm memories which will last our days (you had a rough...

Father found a letter to my mother from a soldier who had been at home when Father was away. Mother quite denied that more than...

for Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth The echoes of a gift thought lost haunt the approach of age as a forgotten page...

If you regret you did not open the many doors you knocked on, reproach yourself for that regret, some doors are mere illusion. Life's...

Looking at you now, light falling, wondering what you are thinking, bent forward in profile, old, yes, but somehow beautiful, although...

How does it feel to be a golden oldie? Jeremy asked John at ninety. No X, no Y, no Larry? One feels very lonely Don't take that road said...

Like a copper coin the sun shone through the mist, withdrew to re-emerge a yellow moon, then hid as vapour thickened and there was only...

Gaunt arms and grey gloves direct the hearse, direct us all to park in spaces under names upon tablets on a wall. Soft music plays. We...

It has gone fast, life, And your children now travel As you, too, have travelled To a world long beyond us To which I was stranger. But...

I missed your birth - the only one of the four I did not see. The celebration of your infancy was overlaid with care, so now there are...

The day after your uncle turned three, The world changed. Standing on Euston Station, Another uncle in your grandma’s arms, A siren’s wail, the war’s first sound, Sent us hurrying underground. The passengers stood serious and hushed. A porter took the child, and we waited. A false alert began the phoney war, The year Yeats died, and the Beetle was born, And Joyce sent Finnegan rejoicing at his Wake. The wind came out and blew him in again, Above that empty entrance hall, Behi

When Butch and Sun Dance shot from their corner, Firing from the hip with each hot cylinder, Then froze into a sepia still, the movie...

She lives today who might have died had you not taken that particular path, under the tower, across the vacant square, past registers of...

Another line in your forehead daughter To add to those deepening there After time you consider wasted Or at least in its lack of effect...

Above the ramparts of Iford Hill, The sun dipped low in a green sky, Rodmell Church lay between trees, And up the valley a cold wind...

for Auntie Maddy A roar past the carriage window Hurries on westwards. In the silence pursuing, Two lovers continue A distant wooing, Strolling Land’s Endwards. Against the moving meadow Two tired blue eyes appear. They bid me welcome, then inquire Why are you here ? Soon enough she knew, Put me in a box, best place, she said, And shut blue eyes for good. The lovers trundle out of view But here against fresh waving trees Her old eyes journey on. They gaze From foliaged happi

for Karlheinz Stockhausen They say Karlheinz asserts The greatest work of art was when The 767s destroyed World Trade But opines that...

The countryside lay empty. A signpost leaning towards him On the right hand gestured skyward And westward at the ground. He found on...