Who has not wished, once, Twice in a lifetime, To float in yellow light and watch, Amid the ratcheting cicadas, The pomegranite tree in flame? Or wished to spend a life Beneath the morning glory On the brown-tiled roof Of a villa nesting By a limpid bay? You'd walk past olive trees on holy days Amongst the quayside restaurants And ouzo warehouses, Stand and chat to fishermen Beside a cage-filled boat. At night they might invite you To lower a cage or two, Watch them swinging

The resurrected towers of Ypres, Which rise on the eastern rim Of this dead-flat plain, Conjure a sepia vision Of mowings down And wipings out. Buglers sound Reveille, Cease Fire up Battle Alley, Call up the ancient hate, As every evening since, Under the cavernous gate. Centurions slump in wheelchairs, A few still stand erect, (Whisky, not beer, their elixir) Shoulder to shoulder, Jest with their neighbour. Bloody good company the lice! They nod. (Four would disappear Befor

We hear the harbour traffic, Chuntering, nosing in, And feel the rise and fall On a harbour wall. At times when we sit below Some boat ties up, Bruising our fenders, Jolting our quietude. Another seems to touch and say: I am here; sleep for the night; This is my place; Sails reefed, engine still, Only the occasional creak and tap Of a mainstay in the wind. So, too, occasional words, And signs of hand or eye, Tell us to draw in, Tie up alongside. They decipher what we fathom O

Solitary trees On the hill's cap, Leaves on the turn, Civilise the space Which scours above This ancient place. Clockwise he walked Round flint and chalk, Still needing much To talk and touch. It sufficed not That he knew why The world ran dry. The blackbird sang, Flint did not lack When the pit was dug. Danger filled it in again, Grass grew and sank Under the rain. He could not trade Weapons unused, Chip the soiled flint, Wield a bone spade, Dug from the earth, Of no current

Rotten fenceposts snap In the wind this evening, Ferries pitch beyond The harbour light. A double rainbow springs From fumes of chimney...

The torrent could just be heard through the shuttered windows in the old stone walls of the farm where friars had kept the wine of the...

The house was real is now a dream, Where we lived in summer light, And occasional Midi rain. At dawn the rising sun backlit A land beyond the sea's horizon; The valley rolled its homesteads Where cypresses fumed on foothills Of the Alpine porphyry. Within, they led their closing lives And entertained their guests. The son Who killed himself lived down below, But we never knew who'd lived before They watched the morning glory. It was enough to make it part Of our lives too.

Clearances? Don’t like the term, a Highland chief protests in chiselled English voice. The English did not clear Scots out. They went...

I drive into the wind in border country and quickly traverse names upon the map I'd thought large towns, but find dwindled to mere...

Speracedes Easter '91 Seeking a quiet grave In the evening light We took the lower road Where the old lavoirs stand And the stream still...

Two figures stood waving goodbye, The man, my father, one foot in the gutter, Watery blue eyes more apt to fix on nothing But fixing now...

The objects are not beautiful The rooms not well proportioned, The house not chosen for itself, But for what could be seen from within....

Villagers unsmiling, conferred in the yew tree square nursing brown arms, smoking as we entered the church porch beneath the sombre...

A door bangs and a telephone rings, Someone laughs and someone sings And somewhere a jazz trumpet plays. The outside enters in other...

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...

Does the empty hand of Zeus and flexing arm prepare a thunderbolt perhaps for those who cross his empty stare? Leica on paunch, a man...

Strangers at a busy hour Glance casually at this garden Where stones have not worn well Since some minor Phidias carved them. Sparrows...

We left by train my American friend and I in patchy snow and a cold March wind for Leningrad in the sixties. Our Finnish guide had a...

I skidded on my Lambretta Near the Champs Elysées Speeding past Citroens, Peugeots, Renaults, you on board, Do you remember emerging From...

For Francis Thompson Here on the green square’s edge At a point of silence listen, a quarrel of sparrows in the covert, a distant mower,...