Almost Composed

Meditation and curiosity

Narcissus Looks Again

March 11, 2015

The pond was deeper than expected, a giant footprint stamped into the earth. It was home to a fifty-pound ghost koi called Persephone. Music became silence, became music again. Moonlight shone on the tiles. Persephone broke the water with her tail. Now gaunt and middle-aged, I saw the moon glint on water like a ten pence coin, miles down, and […]

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Ishmael’s Leg

January 3, 2015

I’ve just finished typesetting the first draft of The Tide Clock and Other Poems. This will be a shared pamphlet featuring poetry by Joe Franklin, Hugh Greasley and myself. It’s not unlike the split 7″ singles bands used to put out to share production costs and pool their fanbases. You might remember a similar collection we produced in 2013, The Inner […]

categories: poems

Shigeru’s Cave

December 11, 2014

i. When Shigeru was twelve, he found a cave no one else had explored. The other boys avoided that part of the wood. Their base bordered the hillside near a soldier’s grave now used as a bookmark for civic grief but Shigeru went on deeper forays into the forest. He staged one man plays under […]

categories: poems

The Roses of Heliogabalus

November 8, 2014

The Roses of Heliogabalus by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. The Roses of Heliogabalus We were talking about art and taking wine with our sensuous king when a slave released the canopy and petals – their blush-making softness, their deafening of the skin – continued falling through us. And when the late sun reddened, guards turned the litter […]

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Isabel’s Curious Machine

September 6, 2014

Williams Carlos Williams said that a poem is a machine made out of words. That’s a fitting way to describe Isabel Rogers’ poem ‘John’s Curious Machines’: a very efficient, inspired machine designed to evoke John Harrison’s ingenious marine chronometers. These highly precise clocks kept time even in rough, varied weather at sea, making it possible for a ship’s navigator to determine its […]

categories: poems