2026

It’s only afterwards that I realise
I could have used a grid layout
at least a calendar instead 
I mapped out my aspirations
across the shifty contours of altitudes 
black and white lines wiggle
some go circular the shape of a tear 
or diamond at around 3000 meters

some fall 

into a soft zigzag then a dome 
cut by a 10 mile mark with no 
other key to anchor me
just a tortoise a ladder 
a u-bend with silver lining 
and a golden blob at the horizon 

there’s water everywhere

St Pancras Basin

In response to King’s Cross Pond by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

St Pancras Basin

In response to King’s Cross Pond by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

Arrived from up North  
escape the train
escape the tube
the early morning blues
                                   the vortex of getting to work
                                              the importance of GETTING TO WORK
                             brimming with purpose          swimming in meaning

I sidestep the underground steps
towards the other ones      further there     down to the towpath
to shake the slouch out of my body
wake my senses      my memories from being at home here      once

I still trust it to absorb my bewilderment
the mayhem of King’s Cross’ trains      sports outlets      fashion campus
the antithesis of this sluggish brown thread of water
cutting through tall walls of city apartments
before it opens up into St Pancras Lock
its traditional cottage on cobbled stones
then St Pancras Basin      buzzing with narrow boats
living the life   the traditional way      in this change-obsessed city

The shock of the new Gasholder Park
           because it’s precisely what I would have wanted
                         for these relics of steam power times
the rotund apartment blocks inside two of them
the steel structure left visible      intact      it’s genius      magnificent
a feast of regeneration that happened without me
               without me even knowing
                                                                        because I’d moved to the post-industrial North
                                                                                     where everything has come to a stand still
                                                                                                               including purpose        my body      senses

The flow of people much younger nudges me
along       they have seen it all       I wonder if they can even see me
or look right through me in my disappeared state
then the girl in front of me        her Afro in a tight bun above her shiny adidas zipper jacket
steps sideways    out of line
                                                  out of the way
                                                                         to a small red dome tent
                                                                                          in the shadows
                                                                         zips it open     disappears

One day I’ll finally stop second-guessing myself

Conviction is emerald green     with Morticia A eyebrow

high as rainbows      the distance filled with aplomb     in metallic

ultra violet     sparkly like that good morning to the neighbour

who sees through her every time      Conviction is generous

a golf course up in the moors     crossed by more sheep then caddies

she lets them in to save on lawn mowing time      stocks the library

with books for people who don’t have anywhere else to go

to stay warm     feeds the pigeons in Pocket Park on Victoria Road

so they stand a chance in this tyranny of sea gulls      Conviction

likes sitting on the old sofa dragged to the common ages ago

someone’s way to welcome aliens     angels     all sorts     the feather stuffing

a nice touch she thinks     flicking unflappably through her folder

of coach trips and cruises     carefully slipped into punched pockets

doesn’t notice the ladybird climbing up her polyester leg      assured

by her defiance to old lady beige      Conviction has dignity

like a grandfather clock      she knows her time is now

Dickens

A confession     then 
that I’ve been in bed 
with the most colonial of languages
threw myself willingly
into the arms of this sugar daddy of attention   
especially the liberal people
who praise me for speaking it so well 
I even get away with my white accent
that’s not Eastern European
I’ve flirted with this language
long before it noticed me   like my indoor fern 
soaking up willingly any water I give it   
I soaked up a little Shakespeare   Jane Austen    
then Virgina Woolf   her in particular
	followed her all the way to the lighthouse    
surrendered to a sea of English rules
		grammar
   		English syntax    rhyme
			and reason

I became so polite 
my friends back home started taking the piss 
I threw my head back and laughed 
Hochmut and all    before the fall

That time     when we were asked to use 
some particular scene   from some particular Charles Dickens story 
			I didn’t know
for a writing exercise
			the shame of being ignorant
their shock at it    my burning anger
as all my Brecht    Goethe     
Christa Wolf    her in particular   so many times
	I’d followed her Kassandra into her premeditated murder 
	surrounded by the enemy king’s wife     
all killed in this one moment
of not knowing the ghost 
of the Empire past

Protest

Protest

     ...where the deaths demand

     a voice

     something more than the dry sigh 

     of fact...
                          Claire Harris Nude on a Pale Staircase



The giant pile driver moved in over night 

digging away at our dignity 

its vibration felt across town

something about the sheer size of its shudder 

how it shook us up      I clapped      cheered 

willed it on      with fists      shaking

shaking the ground beneath us all 



What we thought safe crumbled

even hospitals     funerals     their grief

our newspapers   s t i l l   mostly report numbers

absolutes      so dry they blister away 

silently into the wind

The only noise     the pile driver 

reverberates with their drums

The women 



                       bring up the rear

playing the biggest ones

strapped across upright bodies 

some in hijabs     lots of jewellery

their drums in stickers & flags 

also taped-on foam where tension lugs 

cut into thighs     there’s is a shiver 

ferocious beat on skins

pulled taught into regardless

Upfront



                        the man in the hoodie 

his sharp hand gestures     and whistle 

blows     everyone knows to translate into thunder 

even our impotent chants— 

until all drums     chants     lungs

fall into a staccato of Gaza Gaza Gaza

which means strength     which means

we will continue

Sound Time

Sound Time

“Poetry comes from listening… you must be friends with silence to hear” Joy Harjo

Memory’s pendulum tick tocks through the empty room where I press my ears to the floorboards      hear their trees      wind stir their leaves      until a siren goes off somewhere nearby     two hundred years ago      rips through an unwillingness to compromise

Sound time

the moment my fingertips touch every echo      in the old mill      upstairs at my desk      the murmur of pen stroking paper      retunes everything      quiets all resistance

Sound travels up

something from before      memory      faint as a water mark      growing louder      more confident      as her steps      running      the little girls in her wake      in a laughter                  gone—

Sound time

is spacious      is past      presence      future      condensed into one voice      is hearing with skin      specificity melting into liquid      dissolving into something       arrived       I never know when       and who      motionless on a fallen tree trunk for millennia      until finally      two deer glide past       so close      their breath nuzzles my arm      I condense      into this one single molecule

—image © Petra Hilgers of Ann Hamilton’s installation “We Will Sing” at Salts Mill, Saltaire, #Bradford2025

Statement Piece

“…The kind of statelessness I like…”

In the panic    when they closed the borders    she nearly got fined

she’d cycled out of town towards the mountains

as she’d always done when everything in the little flat

in her mind      had bleached into monochrome

her feet kicking the pedals to stay above water

she’d long stopped noticing the modest sign where she was entering Austria

the same tannengrün and tannin rich

same bird songs of nests     full bellies     the urgency to fly

as she reached the lake     darker and deeper than anyone’s memory

Austrian police were turning round German cars with fines

unless they had a Passierschein

She managed to escape back before being spotted

a glance at the lake so similar in colour and depth

to the one close to her doorstep      so much more secluded

She’d avoided people long before Covid

didn’t need to be asked twice to socially distance

stay in her bubble with herself and the ghost of the cat

who’d died shortly after her mum      her rented flat is in the attic

close to the sky that got its colour from Bayerisch Blau

as far as she could see      a view to the mountains

on the other side of the national border

the sky over there    Tiroler Blau

 

–Line from Momtaza Mehri’s poem “Some days I am too full of everything but myself”–

Horses

Horses

This is what we do

when we go for a burn

first the coffee in our thermal mugs

we pack books     hats for that moment

when we take the helmets off

then settle on a destination

today it’s the lo-fi golf course

up on Midgley Moor     its view

all the way into Manchester

its stone built cottage of a club house

surrounded by more benches than cars

more gardeners than golfers

they eye us up suspiciously

The Captain stops    curious

about his whereabouts   his friendly welcome

has space enough for where is

your Blackness from   your goofy accent

your motorcycle       your  rocking up here      

and Adrian’s manners

always disarming         his ability

to soak up details of golf clubs

                   praise be to Tiger Woods

his book     highlighter pen     orange glasses

while I sit on a bench unaware of it all

lass mir den Wind um die Nase weh’n

remember mum saying

she sometimes gets a funny feeling

watching motorcycles     a longing

Later when we get back in

we let the bikes cool down

wipe them off any dust and dirt

put them back on the trickle charge

Adrian shows me how to check

the brake pads for wear

then we cover them with blankets

Today I received a polite note that my Skype account is to become Teams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I received a polite note that my Skype account is to become Teams

I stare at it in disbelief

can’t quite add up the two worlds

this one with its bouncy still crackling

ring tone in dress over low rise jeans

if not delicate    temperamental     midriff free

as the magnetic tape in a cassette

now gobbled up by the sequin satin super computer

continuously reinventing itself in patent leather

to become better at trying to do

everything       be everything

 

Just for today I choose to stay

on my awkward little planet

where nothing much has changed

in the past 20+ years      where its

appearance symbolised more change

than my mum had seen in her life

and how much mine had changed

my family nagging me about costs

of phoning me from terrestrial lines

while I was surfing free international calls

to the remote lover     my friend two time zones away

our group of uni sisterhood across three different continents

That sheepish jingle conjures up sunsets in Knysna

the redbrick brutalist IT building on Oxford Road

internet cafes with a world of keyboard settings

                    the most challenging one had Arabic letters

                                                    over a French input system

coffee with nutmeg and fresh water melon juice

the madness of the Keepy Lefty      its only other rule

that of size      steering me on in the Toyota Hylux

people having a laugh with me      at me

something I could provide as easily

as excess money      it opened hearts

instead of doors

 

                          Imagine in years to come

my nieces’ children won’t even understand

what life changing moment that was

Skype will be like Mini-Disc Players

like Blogspot like a dial up connection

It’s promise an algorithm of sky and hype

kite     skiving      forever something up there

not weighed down to earth      long dissipated

Mote without castle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once I crossed the line

we dug a trench along it

filled it with broken glass    rubble    sand

rolled a twist of barbed wire across its entire length

a silver hedge sparkling in the sun

There we were    close enough still

to see the cloud wipe the smile

off your face     too far to reach it

with my finger tips     stroke your warmth

the way I liked to

With time rain washed out the sand

that last bit of softness

silver turned rusty

too skeletal for shadows

just memories of home sweet catch on it

as plastic bags on the barbs

Shipwrecked

Shipwrecked      they float        on royal blue pin cushion moss

holding on to hope

inked between the wingtips of her shoulders

out there the ocean’s ghosts

howl      shriek      rattle      their safety net

but for a moment they drown them out

spread a duvet full of silence

between the 70s childhood they have in common

and the knife edge of giving it everything

giving too much       The sea between them

Bunker and border

In response to T. Vinoja’s stitching on fabric ‘Bunker & Border’

seen as part of ‘Unravel’ at The Barbican

It is a map of war

It is also check points      bunkers

burial sites      bones      excavation

it is also ghost prints of displacement

it is also waterwheel

it is also ammonite

history     your story      written in cloth

it is also river      running      away

it is also rose

it is also coral

it is also birch tree      tree rings      ring around

it is also heart      skull      intestines

it is sperm      it is also tears

it it also tearing      it is pain

screeching bright fluorescent hurt

indents in your skin where their hands

held you when everything else crumbled

it is bombs dropped

it is also hammer      banging

your head against walls

it is also prison      unfreedom

cigarette buds      it’s shaky hands dripping ash dust

it is also one tiny yellow sliver of moon

chipped off a grand idea

hiding in the darkest corner

for moments like this

It is also a map to safety

Palestinian Embroidery

In response to “Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery” at The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester

Because I don’t comprehend the meaning of the word

to rend        because the word tears looks too much like crying

and these holes rent in cloth look too much like bullet holes

edged in dangerously bright thread

Because all the dresses and cloth here

were left behind        or given away

hopefully freely        with their spirit soul

moulded      stitched     worn into them

Because this mourning cloth of every widow

who drowned her dress in a pool of indigo

colourless until the monotony of mourning would fade

into something older        new

because time is up      she scrubs off grief

with a toothbrush      scours      rubs

because it won’t ever be quite the same

always some indigo shadows—

I step into this displaced space

a tomb decked as King’s burial chamber

gold thread on silk      linen      cotton

wool coins     beads      embroidered jewellery

all that was not pillaged by those who keep on

grabbing        Now that all cloth is taken

all spindles      looms      colour      delicate stitches

now that the humbleness of their embroidery

is taken        vines      crucifixes      mosques

cross stitched variety of symbols        visual code

for the origin of each dress        the audacity

of their embroidery      incorporating British Mandate patches

forbidden colours      maps      stories

now that the resistance of their embroidery

is taken        intifada      flags      fire

all muscle memory        their identity stolen

with the cycles of mourning      of praising Allah—

Now the pillagers come for the plain polyester

the hunger        the hole-riddled dreams 

– images and poem by Petra Hilgers –

Dawn walk to Bridestones – January

Sun beckoned long before she was up

gesturing unnoticed from behind frost

not to mind him       I know sun won’t win

and today I remember she’s feminine

in my language       I crunch across

half-melted snow frozen over

in moonlit night     then melted     then frozen

again      she’s making light of it all

my double socks that won’t stop my toes

going numb with chill      wind ripping tears

turn to ice down my cheeks      piercing

tiny gaps in my tight-knit hat

everything up for grabs      a tiara of

frozen water drops around the waste pipe

more splendid than mum’s crystal wedding vase

sun throws a bouquet of sparkles across

just for good measure      I lose the path

in the dazzling sea of snow      left with

only a trace of rabbit paws to follow

until I see the silhouette of the trig point

darkhouse under deep blue winter sky

Live Coverage

And we watch

and we despair

and despair gets a hot drink

some chocolate

plays our feel good song

grabs something to read

anything      on Instagram

an ad about autumn trends

remembers we really need

to replace that worn out jeans

renew the car insurance

despair hoovers the hallway 

gets ready

to go to the corner shop

for milk      for more tea

cause it’s the only thing

we really know

but it’s raining     again

the boots still wet

and we grumble

and swear at the cat

for playing with our laces

when it’s raining again

bombs on Gaza