Poetry in Commotion

Sit back and watch the sea above Where images of waves and whales and fish and ships Collide and slide and get mixed up Until it is a sea no more But...

As Lenin looks down from his sombre pedestal Concrete erupts from a bleak landscape like The broken teeth of windswept peasants Drinking homemade...

With my folks, I lived on top Of the North East Gas Board showrooms shop In a row of flats called Parkway Mews From which we had outstanding views Of...

Two new eyes Startled; staring out at An old world. Not knowing it's old. Two new lungs Taking their first gasps of air Breathed a million times...

I love to see the sun come up through early morning mist. I quite enjoy a pint or two without ever getting pissed. I like to walk around the town, my...

No Bulgar children, women or men Can recall the day exactly when They first strode into forested lands With an axe on a shoulder or a saw in a hand...

Sultry and still the sweet night air. Latin music. Crickets chirping. Like a favela in Rio or anywhere But for the sound of Geordies burping. For el...

I'd like to be the owner of a butcher's shop in Newry. I'd like to shake my hips about and sing like Billy Fury. I'd like to be a cosmonaut like...

This is a poem I wrote about forty years ago. I was working as a waiter in a cocktail bar at the time. My dear friend Anthony Healey found the faded...

Around New Year and before Lent, the Kukeri walk and dance through villages to scare away evil spirits with their elaborate costumes and the sound of multiple large bells attached to their belts. They are also believed to provide a good harvest, health, and happiness to the village during the year. The Kukeri tradition has been practiced since Thracian times, predominantly in Bulgaria but also in other Balkan countries.

All the year they scrub the homes From Skibbereen to Portglenone. They work their fingers to the bone, Afraid to pause to moan or groan. They milk...

A photograph of a green wooden hut beside a river. But the river is none other than the River Danube (known locally as the Dunav / Дунав) taken on my phone a few days ago from near the town of Svishtov in Bulgaria, approximately 80 kms from where I live. I love watching rivers flow by but the might of the Danube (the second longest in Europe, after the Don) is extraordinary. Its beauty and the folklore and mythology that accompany it compelled me to write this poem.

502 Kilometres Just up the road from my wife and me A fire’s burning constantly Folks just like us are in the street No food to eat Nowhere to sleep...