Settled Due to the storm and weather warnings, due to the cancelled trains, I thought I’d have a tough time getting to work. Somehow, I did not. My train arrived on time, and as I settled into my window seat, I watched the scenery pass by. Houses, hills, fields, and fences— all different, yet all covered in magical frost and snow.

Train Poem Hook me like the man or woman who's smile's shy of meaning who gets off at London Bridge and doesn't look back. Never do we see each other quite this way again you in the rush hour me almost gone * Dunfermline Rain im John Burnside ...though yes, there is a meadow afterward you said to Lucie in your elegy…

Smothered with Kewpie Thrust into my path – imagining all the places we could go together, as you steadily grow on my mind, whilst I ignore all the red lights of overindulgence – like falling in love with the wrong person all over again, right till the last drop. Gwil James Thomas is a poet, novelist and inept musician. He lives in Bristol, England, but has also lived in London, Brighton and Spain.

Hallerbos We never made it to the bluebells though the bluebells were only a ten-minute train ride away. We talked about the bluebells and the free bus and the free bikes from outside the station but never made the journey. We had to catch them now or miss them, the bluebells in Halle, carpeting the forest floor. * Irritable Deals…

The Body Hidden among the mourning trees, picked clean but for the coat to keep it warm against frosts as brittle as the leaves fallen underfoot, marking our long descent into darkness, lending dignity to the unmarked demise; eyes glazed, blind to the milky light of morning's sun breaking through the clouds clothing the hillside, deaf too to the haunted cry of the buzzard circling…

Summer Harbour Flower shops flaunt blue irises. On café tables, dead matches, spent stubs. A tango record crackles. The old men with November faces pore over greasy playing cards. In a back room is the rattle of dice. Pigeons on wrought-iron balconies blink at the blue sea; clanking crates sway drowsily from the crane’s chains. Mark Valentine is from Northampton and now lives in Yorkshire, near the Leeds-Liverpool canal.

Viagra from Vancouver I find myself perplexed by Gwen’s email: Pete, wouldn’t you like a giant penis? I stay skeptical, of course—for despite her solemn promise to haunt me non-stop, I’ve had no word in thirty years. But this? Fretting about my membrum virile? I’d expect Nan to leer in my mirror, tongue out, a joke-shop dagger through her head.

The Camping Coach Our mother always dreamed we would play in the same team. As we scuffled at football in the gravel in matching shirts and shorts we waved to the driver and fireman. Our very own train-set: tank engine, two coaches, single track, every two hours, up towards the junction, or down to the estuary and Budleigh Salterton. I’d walk to the village shop for the Mirror,

Apples My garden tree weighed down by apple moons. The crisp satellites bloom in space polished reddish-green, chosen fruits, soft as the roof of your mouth (touch it with your tongue). My apples mimic the Grain Moon, the Lynx Moon. Each side of apple bears a haunted face like the Corleck Head. The apples hang mob-heavy in their waxing flesh…

Wrong Ground So, take me back to be him then, drawn to where I played. See the place emerge, as he would, from trees and rain – the roundabout’s dizzying, the see-saw ride, excitement’s glimpsing slide, the tempting swings giving out, giving in. And, coming through the trees, along the paths, more of those whose blood spins his to these returns…

First Day Back Roll me up in a carpet – oatmeal, Berber twist. Hide me in some wind-swept, mid-west crawl space. Anywhere but here, in this fully furnished stent; injecting me into this chill, collage city. At this moment, I am considering retiring from my room. From their concierged rooms where man is judged by his final failure. I'm thinking of leaving this week, this year behind –

Circle For Glen Late October and the weather’s trying everything: Martindale ghost-white in hail, fields frozen in seconds of winter before the sun pulls through wet greens. We’d pitched up on the shore of Ullswater, our mercies not even small: tins of beer, deck chairs in the tent, talking nonsense as always, watching the cloud-smudged fells. Next morning, your children appear outside,

Dieu et Mon Droit Two of us at least are gagging for a fag after three hours locked in the jury room on tepid tap water. It all hangs on a word. I’ve slipped the Judge a note asking her to define terms. She claims sure is a word we’re all familiar with. We must sharpen our minds to ice picks, breathe the clean air…

One Day You’ll Be Cool* for Brian and Terry Smyth I’m watching that scene from Almost Famous – Anita encouraging her younger brother to look under your bed, it’ll set you free. He retrieves a tartan leatherette bag, unzips it to reveal a treasure trove of LPs, and I’m back in La Salle Drive, that day in 1971, your red setter, Rua, padding impatiently…

From Sheffield to Huddersfield, early May ...................Three whistles and we’re moving, past the electrical works, yellow weeds— or flowers? I’m being pulled ...through this mysterious ordinary world. ......Sheffield breaks open its graffiti tags, blue and silver code I can’t crack. ...................I’ve cleared the window of mist. ...So many greens, like over-cooked spring cabbage, weighed-down trees. On Dodworth platform ........where Passengers must not cross the line…

In the Beginning She’d run out of words, or someone had stolen them. She looked everywhere – supermarket, garden, church. Others could access them, reading labels, instructions or prayers, but to her they were elusive. She stopped people in the street, but they turned away from her clasped hands and desperate, silent pleas. Just as she thought she couldn’t go on, a D came tumbling towards her.

Kingfisher Wait— Hush. Still as the bones beneath the silt, The Don breathes cold whispers. Willow stoops like an old crone, Fingers grazing the river's mirror. Combing for ghosts in its sheen. There— Did you see it? A jagged flash, a shard of sapphire— Kingfisher. Sky splinters against marsh marigold and moss, Breaking the hush with its blaze. Your careless foot strikes a brittle fallen alder limb—

Primary Colours Alison, my pleasure is taking part, with a pair of rounded scissors and scraps of Christmas paper. Here I am, sun blue and colour fast, ready for instruction. You never waste a shred of those cutout clouds or hills, they fold into shiny children and dance on tinfoil waves. A fuzzy-felt square builds a big bright house, for see-through tissue-paper lives…

Agent Barbering It’s about this, downtown humanism, cutting edge modernity, hell yeah, salvaged Springs’ palm, own climatic zoned Skiathos Bay courtyard or vocal booth circa Abbey Road, Oasis play the Select-O-Matic 200, Cilla, vogue Bermuda’s, all seasons’ beanies, midsummer skull bandana – Alfie loving Foffa’s hands misting, trimming, tapering quiffs with powdered steel, avant-garde left ear hearing pints pouring at The Whistle,

Subterranean We know this now: everywhere tiny threads of hylae running after one another like a giant underground plant, the largest one known being 10km wide. To grow well, a sapling’s roots must reach into this mycorrhizal network. Even if you get down on your knees and put your ear to the ground you’ll never hear the slow gulp of decay,

Speaking with the palaeontologist after Lizzie Hawkins was nearly impossible: he was half-hidden, curled up and surrounded by layered samples, a palisade of aged earth. I appointed myself as his research assistant, proofread grant applications, sprinkled adjectives, added a thousand here and there. He was as moody as most men, his weathervane creaked. His interest in football, horseracing reduced to a fixation…

The Drey Skin In the drey of my skin I curl in the elbow pit of your barked limbs. I rummage for edibles in the curated grass of your longing hunger I can bury in the memory of the soil. My hard of hearing sky no longer sees the song of birds, except as distant cirrus or mares tails that brightness…

Sonnet for Emma I’m reading Thomas Hardy’s poems once more, the ones he wrote about his long-dead wife, regretting all the little cruelties and barbs that he inflicted on her, all her life. For after all that time, a new wife wed, there still resided in his core a hole, a nagging hunger, unrequited love for Emma, lodged forever in his soul.

California Rocket Fuel Have you heard that the force from an F1 car can put your face in reverse, breed teeth as cheek muscles give way to speed? Often you feel such force, behind closed doors when you find yourself spark out on a bed that trebles as a gaming chair. Better than those frantic bouts of blazing night sweats,

Fish Knives How I came by them I can't remember. A boxed set of six bone handled fish knives, blades like oriental swords, their matching forks crafted for genteel bites. They looked as if they had never pierced or sliced a piece of cod or plaice as they lay with Edwardian decorum on velvet rests, backed with a lining of wedding white.