Mission Zero

Why not join me in this action to get some final traction,
working on our stratagems to counter all the allergens,
writing lots of articles on unrelenting particles.

Help those who work in Drive Thru’s gulping gas from car queues,
frying chickens in the kitchens, getting fumes in their stitching,
flipping burgers with no window, with their lungs playing bingo.

Comfort those on building sites, sawing wood, with deadlines tight,
mixing screed with rapid speed so as to plaster faster,
meeting goals drilling holes in concrete blocks down the docks.

Help farm hands spraying crops we see displaying in our shops,
ploughing blindly in corn dust clouds to get to feed the crowds,
chewing dirt from sifting bales of hay and shifting cows each day.

Let’s seek out and sign petitions on all those foul emissions,
that blame the same old people, those apostles of the fossils,
false prophets and their profits who put the cruel in our fuel.

Then add noise to the ruction about uncontrolled construction,
retort and snort at our system of unreliant transport,
shriek insults and invectives that assail the way we retail.

There’s less honey for our money and we’re frit about the grit
and loathe the policy miasma on our children’s asthma,
the perverse prevarication that’s so stupid and so strange.

We’re seething as we’re breathing. Let’s not lose this chance to change.

Featured in Wire: Elemental Emergency, Newport Stanza, 2025

Dear Edvard Munch

My grateful thanks to Mia Harris for permission to use her film

Featured in Wire: Elemental Emergency, Newport Stanza, 2023

Allotments

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap
Galatians 6: 7

Scarecrows wrapped in scarves and winter clothing
wear brown gloves that once warmed green fingers,
wheelless barrows house upturned pots,

but when leaves bud, plots need turning,
the crisp sounds of spades slice Spring soil,
rock-hard turf consigned to memory.

Bunches of ardent gardeners get to tend
beloved parcels of weed-spoilt ground,
check forecasts for frost or rain that may ruin

rectangled lots carved into the mountain.
Bamboo sticks, teepees without clothes,
a promise of beans running through Summer.

Mounds of Maris Pipers spell deep-fried chips.
Wild garlic bodes well for Tapas Tuesdays.
The stuff of homemade soups sit in rows.

Sunlight bathes Pontypool’s rippled landscape,
sprays rays of golden blooms on rosy cheeks
of heroes in multicoloured wellies,

their spirits transcending efforts,
souls grounded, rooted in earth,
digging deep into an ancient proverb.

Featured in These Pages Sing, Spring, 2025

My Place

Barleycove, Co. Cork

I’m here in my mind,
feet firm on the sand, to look
past Ireland’s teardrop.

Endless horizon,
gentle ocean, warm winds shape
inner harmony.

Salt air serenades,
it’s lilting tones like loved ones
lost some years ago.

Some ancestors lie
in an unmarked shallow grave. 
Others sing once more.

The chorus of love
settles my heart, the rhythm
at one with this place.

They sing of hope that
though elsewhere, I’ll still belong
but from who knows where.

My spirits take seed
scatter through the windswept dunes
to flower renewed.

Immeasurable
grains of sand ground my soul here
for eternity.

Featured in Wanderlust Journal, April, 2025

I only wanted a book

In 1999 the International Federation for the Deaf
formally adopted blue as its colour to symbolise deafness.

I stand in the queue,
immersed in the first chapter.
A 10-year-old Barcelona boy
visits the cemetery of books,
plucks one from a shelf
who’s title mirrors the one I’m holding –
just plucked from a shelf.
I look up, find myself at the counter
surprised by the volume of noise.
On the other side, a man mouths lines
from Bowie’s Sound & Vision, looks at me
as if I wasn’t worth the time of day.

Loud speakers vibrate; the melody bounces;
bookshelves double as treble clefs.
I’m lost. Caught between classic rock
and the need to answer the man
who seems in a hurry, in a race,
has no time to help me hear what he says,
give me a chance to guess those parts unheard.
Once scanned it’s in his hand.
I can no longer see the price to pay,
watch his face contort, an angry finger point.
I’ve wasted precious seconds of his day,
The machine displays, with inanimate courtesy,
the sum I need to share.
I thank the card reader for its kindness.
Go back home but cannot see my book.
The curtains are drawn, I’ve wrapped myself in blue.
Dark blue.

Featured in These Pages Sing, Spring, 2025