Category Archives: Literature

A Rubbish Poem

Have the bin men bin?They’ve bin and goneUp before the morning shoneSwift as swallows, rarely seenIn their ravenous machine Hauling out the tubs of grimeRancid contents oozing slimeGulping down the bursting bags,A metal mouth that never gags This shadow caste that never moanThey know it falls to them aloneTo deal with what we all ignoreLestContinue reading “A Rubbish Poem”

The Friend Ship

Sailing in a friend ship This craft has brought us far Through waters ever-changeable We steered it by the stars The sails have been mended It leaks from time to time The wind is unpredictable And with that, we are fine This friend ship is a galleon With many decks and rooms An ocean’s worthContinue reading “The Friend Ship”

Why Do Men Build Walls?

“The heart of the wall is where the unloveliest material resides, shoved in with less artifice to fill out the construction. But this is also a place of refuge, the voids between stones providing cover for invertebrates. As we worked, ants, beetles and spiders would often rush out from within when we disturbed their havens.”

Love your Local Parks!

I was recently commissioned by the arts organisation Collective Encounters to write a poem celebrating parks and the role they have played during lockdown. I’m lucky to live near Sefton Park in Liverpool and have seen how vital a resource it has been. This poem captures how I feel about parks, the joy of natureContinue reading “Love your Local Parks!”

Finding Peace During this Crisis

Greetings, friends. As a follower of Eckhart Tolle I would say the best cure for anxiety is present-moment awareness. This poem came to me in response to the coronavirus crisis. Take care, Tom x   At this moment The sun burns bright A cloud glows white The air holds light A bird makes flight AtContinue reading “Finding Peace During this Crisis”

Tasting the fruit of Yoko Ono’s poetic wisdom.

The Museum of Liverpool recently hosted an exhibition called ‘Double Fantasy’ charting the very public relationship and life of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In this already Beatles-saturated city it was hardly something to salivate over but as my mum was in town we paid a visit. As a loop of the piano introduction toContinue reading “Tasting the fruit of Yoko Ono’s poetic wisdom.”

Riding With Joni

Popular music history is full of train songs from Boxcar Blues to Chatanooga Choo-Choo and Joni Mitchell continued the tradition on this cut from her 1974 album Court and Spark. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgE6lDYz7I0 It’s a wistful tune – it is Joni Mitchell after all – but it rides on a gently funky chassis, suggesting the forward movementContinue reading “Riding With Joni”

Under The Radar

To all members of the soiled siblinghood who cling to the city streets, that feral fraternity bequeathed to us by Madame Thatcher, for whom the park bench is a couch and the church steps a social club, who live alongside our absurd society and happen to be addicted to the wrong things… To these homelessContinue reading “Under The Radar”