As Dusk Falls

The Beauty Of This Island

An Artist In Space

My young friend, the creative and talented Louis, gave me a list of words to write into a poem. His words are in bold and this poem is for him...

An Artist In Space

Wrapped in my space suit,

I am a Panda Picasso,

trying to sketch planet earth with my pencil.

So far, I'm doing a pretty good job.

Things look different up here than they do on the map:

Indonesia is a small bird bathing in the sea.

Italy doesn't look like a boot when it's upside down;

it is more like an alligator opening its great jaw.

Scandinavia is a piece of cheese on a fork.

That's pretty funny, I think,

and when I laugh,

my breath rushes past my ears

like a red tiger's roar.

There is no room for a lunchbox up here.

Instead I suck on sugar cubes

like a horse after a race.

Sometimes the whole of space

looks at me and twinkles a question:

"What?"

- as if I have the answer,

as if I represent all the people who ever lived

and can reply for us all.

Apart from the sugar cubes, and my pencil,

the only things I carry with me are words.

Weightless, unaffected by gravity, and very satisfying,

I nibble on them whenever I'm hungry.

My favourite one today is "flabbergasted".

And so I sing it out into space -

"Flabbergasted!"

- an answer to the question,

with a million tiny answers inside it

like stars packed into the galaxy's pocket.

Lottie Loves Cake

My young friend, the magical and creative Lottie, gave me a list of words to write into a poem. Her words are the colours of the rainbow and this poem is for her...

LOTTIE LOVES CAKE

Lottie loves cake.

She loves it so much that she eats it all day long.

For breakfast she eats Moon Cake,

silver and round and full of the wonders of her dreams.

For lunch she eats Sky Cake,

big and wide as the clear blue sky,

with puffy clouds of icing on top

and a bird or two for decoration.

For dinner she eats Jungle Cake,

a very exciting cake,

covered with great leafy plants and bright pink flowers.

It is also a very noisy cake, 

with tigers growling and parrots squawking.

When her friend, Matilda, comes over for tea,

they play the viola and sing songs about cake

such as "every cloud has some silver icing"

and "there was an old woman who lived in a scone".

They eat Rose Cake together and paint their nails the colour of Roses.

Sometimes, they magic the cake into a real rose.

Then Felix, the dog, runs around in circles 

trying to catch the rose with his nose, it smells so good.

Barack, the cat, sits like an emperor, 

calm and majestic, and sips milk from a golden bowl.

Lottie asks her brother, Louis, if he would like a piece of Rose Cake

but he prefers to run around chasing Felix

and, anyway, Louis loves ice cream.

The Promotion

The Mosquito

While I munch 

my sensible snack

of carrot sticks 

and cheese,

the ambassador of hunger

sucks what he craves

from my hot blood.

An Emotional Bake-off

On The Menu At The Witch's House

Cigarette Break

He leans against the trunk of the winter tree,

holds his cigarette like a Tibetan horn,

and trumpets his breath into the frozen air.

His old life burns, becomes ash,

becomes the snow at his feet.

He is readying himself to return

to the world of buildings and cars

and, most of all, to the world of people,

with their red faces and their smiling eyes.

Haute Cuisine

Folding The Twilight

Hands circling,

gathering the ancient air,

my mother folds the twilight

into night.

Village Rain

There is no rain,

my grandpa said,

like the rain in my village.

It made diamonds out of cobblestones

and turned the rooftops silver.

Reinvented As Bedouin

My Grandfather

She Will Be A River

The father drives,

distant as a mountain, 

silent as a mountain is silent,

rich with the secrets 

that sit beside him.

The daughter asks:

Where were you born? 

What’s your favourite food? 

He answers with facts, 

each word a lie.

She hears whispers 

from the empty seats:

He was born 

on the outskirts of death.

His heart longs 

for honeycake at midnight.

She has decided: 

she will be a river, 

will rush along 

through the open fields 

like an oracle, 

telling everyone her secrets. 

They will look 

into her clear waters 

and see the pebbles 

and the stones, 

the piles of ash 

and the mounds of gold.