Month: June 2026

Copenhagen May 2026

I tell you what is poetry!
This is poetry.
It is a warm late spring,
a bar in Copenhagen.
Eyes arrested by shining herring,
nose sharpened by Akavit’s vapours,
a knife spreads white lard and capers
savoured with crispy shards 
of apple-sweetened onion 
spread on black, black bread.

All life’s skewers
kitchen cured.

May 2026

Some lives would never land in Christiania –
yours might be one.
But a thin sliver of a path
from rebellious youth and contrary convictions,
walked in some other footwear,
might have led me here.

However, my leather shoes and Paul Smith shirts
walked in a different way.
Increments of work and social pleasures
created their own compelling movement,
and the joys of family have deep roots
hefting me to a different hillside.

So, I sit here outside the Café Moonfisher
coffee and carrot cake to one side,
thinking of paths not taken,
notebook open, pencil in my hand
watching, with little sorrow,
someone else’s promised land.

We are Mary Oliver’s snow geese

when you see us, see us –

it may be enough for any life

We are Seamus Heaney’s father’s spade

digging gravelly ground

down and down to healing wells

We are Dylan Thomas’s young and easy days

under simple stars

and the moon always rising

And, of course, we are Mary McLeod’s sparrows

singing by your lintel in the heather-scented morning

and at night, when your pillow is a loch of tears