Other Lives

The Smell of Old Books Wind in the leaves – my daughter turns over in her sleep. * Rainy afternoon; inside a second-hand bookshop the smell of old books. * Siesta-time… my neighbour and his girlfriend at it again. * frost on windscreens walking home alone the night my mother died. * Dead. Starry night – no help there. * Swimming in the rain; a glimpse of a rat slipping off the riverbank. * my grandfather facing the setting sun eyes shut * time for a talk staring at the fireplace no fire * mountain forest morning mist drenches the tree-trunks * She holds back the duvet – the world is born again. * plums in a bowl – changing colour as the sun moves around the house * after arguing kept awake by her stillness * Snow on the window-sill; her toes sticking out from under the duvet. * A dog farts: they all suffer in the lift. * Broad river: boats travelling tied together. * At the optician’s: through each lens the world looks different. * throwing pebbles into the sea still unhappy * Snow by ...

Blue Doors Boring meeting… I doodle a spiral inwards and inwards. * The smell of toast reaches me upstairs: winter morning. * Whoa! What’s the hurry, speeding hearse? * Indian summer… listening to football scores in the back garden. * Midnight, 25 degrees – showering under the stars. * Friends round for dinner… the dog breaks wind silently under the table. * locking the door a quick look the stars out * Pissing in the dark – birds singing through an open window. * heron by the lake stillness looking at stillness * old pond blue plastic drum no frogs * Moth on a pink shirt: the whole department store to itself. * warm night my feet search for a cold spot * on the shore a pregnancy test – positive * The path to nirvana lost again – chocolate ice cream! * Two brown horses – red horses, my daughter observes. * Insomnia… long silence, then, a cough. * snowy morning two horses nose to nose in a white field * A beach ball floats across an empty swimming pool – end of summer. * grey afternoon ...

The Tomatoes of Worthing Even the peaches in Sainsbury’s have ripened – summer’s almost gone. * Autumn morning chill – the walk to the train station leaves me feeling sad. * Frost in the country; the first football coach is sacked – must be haiku time! * Do not forget the abandoned spider’s web on the kitchen window. * These small fruits exploding with sweetness – Worthing tomatoes! * Garrulous on Guinness, I seek out an old friend – poor moon! * Thwack! Howzat! Applause. * Sudden downpour – scent of pavement and tomato plants. * A swan honking overhead disturbs my morning rest. * A car door thuds shut, someone hammers, a child laughs – everyday jazz! * Deadheading roses is like pruning a poem of redundant lines. * Evening sunlight on the back of my neighbour’s house – open-air cinema! * Moonlit banana trees fringe a sandy bay – some window display! * The skin on your knees – notice its resemblance to the grain of the trees. ©2011 Dan Wyke

The summer's a washout so enjoy a day out with my poem 'Summer Fete' which was published in the last issue of New Walk Magazine and was reproduced last month on Declan Ryan's blog daysofroses . And yes, I couldn't find the circumflex key!

This week I am really pleased to bring you an award-winning poem by Patricia Ace. So far Patricia's work is most extensively gathered in her HappenStance pamphlet First Blood , and her poem 'Neighbours' was the stand-out poem for me in the latest issue of Poetry News. Sixteen You weren’t the best-looking boy at school; not the brightest or the funniest or in the First Fifteen. You hated cliques. I’m not sure I even remember your name, though it could have been Alex.. I remember plump lips, long lashes my friends would have killed for; a shock of black hair, gelled and spiked. And I remember that windy September afternoon we bunked off from Games and hid in the woods, smoking and talking beneath the susurrus of turning leaves until conversation lulled and you looked at me. Roughly you pinned me against the trunk of the tree, so close I could smell its sap, its bark biting my back through my thin school blouse, streaking the white with green. The surprise as your flesh spran...

This week I'm really pleased to be able to reproduce Ben Wilkinson's version of Eugenio Montale's short lyric 'Il Balcone'. The poem is a favourite of mine and one which I've tried translating before, though never as well as this. The Balcony after Eugenio Montale Remember those nights I’d linger below as you stood in the stars and we’d talk of leaving, as if auditioning for the part of Romeo and fluffing my lines as usual? Now on the opposite side I lean smoking and think on that handful of chances. The latticework of some distant tower block a chessboard that’s cleared after stalemate. Somewhere beyond a long flight’s expanses you spark a Zippo and light one up. Here it starts raining as I hang in the moment, turn towards this window’s squaring of dark. © Ben Wilkinson, reproduced by permission of the poet Ben Wilkinson was born in Stafford, Staffordshire in 1985. He read English and Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, and was awarded an MA in Writing...

Extranjero Ten years on and perfection's lost its distant lustre. My accent seeps away. Every few minutes I let some vowels tug me back home, back towards the cadence of who I am or was or was and am. 'Inventing Truth' is available from HappenStance Press . Matthew Stewart also blogs at Rogue Strands .