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All I have are memories— love and loss, pain and despair; the remorseless spiral into sorrow and then the slow crawling back until I learned to live again. I imagine the next time we meet. But will there ever be a next time? What if we don't recognize each other anymore or flowers are no longer in your life? What if when I look into your eyes I do not see the girl of '67 with the flower cotton dress? What if I am not brave to tell you how I died when we said goodbye. Will you listen to my tears? I lie perfectly still in misery. There are a thousand pictures swirling inside my head. What if, what if, what if? Part of the Old Stories cycle of poems A few words about the poem… A Poem Laden with Longing and Loss | Melancholy Poems What if," from the series “Melancholy Poems,” delves into the contemplation of memories, love, loss, and the uncertainty of the future. It begins with the speaker reflecting on their memories, encompassing both joy and sorrow and the recurring journey of despair and recovery. The repetition of "What if" underscores the pervasive sense of uncertainty and doubt that permeates the speaker's thoughts. Throughout the poem, there is a poignant exploration of potential outcomes and fears regarding the future, particularly concerning the possibility of a reunion with a loved one. The uncertainty of recognition and the absence of familiar elements such as flowers in the loved one's life evoke a sense of apprehension and longing. The speaker grapples with the fear of not seeing the person they once loved reflected in their eyes and the hesitation to express their emotions. The imagery of lying still in misery and the swirling of countless thoughts illustrate the weight of contemplation and emotional turmoil. Overall, the poem captures the complex emotions associated with memory, love, and the unknown future, inviting readers to ponder the "what ifs" that linger in the recesses of the mind.

Reflection on the Quay A stranger's face leaps out of the looking glass. In a panic, I peel the layers searching for the girl I knew, the girl with the flower cotton dress. Your life unfolds on endless screens. I am dazzled! Many talk of your sainthood, others compare you to a work of art. In many people's eyes you are equal to an angel, an inspiration for Antony some even may say. They can only see the laurels of your success and not the coin we paid. All stories have their season and soon, you were craving for all that lay beyond. Every day, I nursed our wounds and mended our broken bones; every day, you killed us slowly until we did not know each other anymore. Our nights became silent. We began to make love without love until you had nothing left for me anymore not even your anger. You waited each morning by the quay scanning the horizon for the ferry and you traded in your cotton flower dress for a shiny leather briefcase, a powerful mission statement and a Montblanc pen. The neon lights of ambition beckoned you to go. Part of the Old Stories cycle of poems A few words about the poem… Melancholy Poems: The Descent of Lost Love in “Rumours of Your Sainthood" In "Rumours of Your Sainthood," the poet crafts a narrative that explores the dissolution of love and the transformation of a once-intimate connection into something distant and unrecognisable. This poem fits seamlessly into the tradition of melancholy poems, with its themes of loss, disillusionment, and the quiet resignation that often accompanies the end of a relationship. The poem opens with a striking image: "A stranger's face leaps / out of the looking glass." This metaphor sets the tone for the rest of the poem, highlighting the alienation and estrangement that has taken root. The poet's attempt to "peel the layers" in search of the girl in the "flower cotton dress" signifies a longing for the past, a desire to reconnect with the innocence and simplicity of what once was. Yet, this search is in vain, as the beloved has been consumed by the trappings of modern success and societal validation. The progression of the beloved’s life, as narrated through the poem, is marked by a stark contrast between external adulation and internal decay. While others view her as a saint, an "inspiration to Antony," the poet remains painfully aware of the cost of this transformation. The poem emphasises the superficial nature of these accolades, noting that others "can only see / the laurels of your success / and not the coin we paid." The reference to "the coin" subtly alludes to the emotional and relational sacrifices made, a common theme in melancholy poems that explore the cost of ambition and the loss of personal connection. The poem's narrative then shifts to the slow unravelling of the relationship. The poet’s role as a caretaker is juxtaposed with the beloved’s emotional withdrawal, as seen in the lines, "Every day, I nursed our wounds / and mended our broken bones; / every day, you killed us slowly." The use of the word "killed" here conveys the gradual and painful erosion of the relationship, a process that eventually leads to an emotional void where even anger—a sign of passion—no longer exists. The final stanzas of the poem depict the beloved's complete departure from the relationship, both emotionally and physically. The symbolic act of trading in the "cotton flower dress" for a "shiny leather briefcase" marks the final step in her transformation. The imagery of the "neon lights of ambition" and the "Montblanc pen" highlights her embrace of a new identity, one that is distant from the shared past with the poet. The melancholy in this poem is encapsulated in this moment, where personal ambition has eclipsed love, leaving behind a sense of irreparable loss. "Rumours of Your Sainthood" stands as a poignant example of melancholy poems that explore the themes of lost love and the alienation that often accompanies personal transformation. Through its vivid imagery and reflective tone, the poem captures the bittersweet reality of a relationship that could not withstand the pressures of ambition and change. The poet’s exploration of this emotional landscape offers a contemplative reflection on the nature of love, loss, and the passage of time.

Snow-covered Little Venice It's the twentieth of December. The Jewish minstrel strummed his chords at 4 am and nailed me to the stave in every minor scale. I drift around the freezing streets searching for the stairway back to us in Little Venice. Lovers are mingling on the bridge, hold hands in bars and small cafés and boats glisten on the water. In your haste to be the Avant-Garde queen, you denied me three times before the morning and each time you grew more distant. 'There will never be another premiere,' the master of ceremonies cries at noon. Black limousines wait outside my door, the red carpet is frayed and scarred, and still, I hide behind the curtain yearning for a glimpse of your fragrant life. The light is fading fast in Little Venice. It's cold and dark, Christmas will be here in five short days then a bleak endless winter. Numb, I sit by the water scribbling muddled verses about the jigsaw piece still missing. Part of the Old Stories cycle of poems A few words about the poem… Melancholy Poems: Exploring Loss and Yearning in “Songs at 4 am” "Songs at 4 am" captures the sadness and despair of lost love against the backdrop of Little Venice, one the most beautiful parts of London. The first two stanzas situate the reader in a specific time and place, invoking a sense of personal disorientation as the speaker roams the streets, searching for a lost connection. The imagery of lovers on the bridge and glistening boats creates a juxtaposition of warmth and intimacy with the speaker's internal isolation. The third stanza introduces a tension between personal ambition and emotional neglect. The speaker addresses a lover who, in pursuit of artistic distinction, has repeatedly distanced herself. This act of denial is likened to a biblical betrayal, intensifying the emotional gravity. The refrain of the master of ceremonies and the minstrel's song at 4 am suggests a recurring, unending sorrow, marked by the metaphorical crucifixion on the stave, emphasizing the speaker's emotional torment. The mention of black limousines and a frayed red carpet symbolizes a funeral, hinting at the passage of time and an unfulfilled life as death approaches. The speaker's hiding behind the curtain reflects a reluctance to face reality, yet an undying hope for reconnection persists. The contrast between the opulence of the past and the starkness of the present underscores the theme of loss and longing. The poem “Songs at 4 a.m.” from the series Melancholy Poems, concludes with a bleak depiction of the approaching winter, both literal and metaphorical. The cold and fading light of Little Venice serve as a metaphor for the speaker's desolation. As Christmas nears, a time typically associated with warmth and togetherness, the speaker is engulfed in a sense of endless winter, scribbling incomplete verses. This act of writing symbolizes a futile attempt to make sense of the unresolved emotional puzzle, highlighting the enduring pain of the missing piece.

Little Venice - a Neighbourhood of London For years I have lived alone in a tiny single room by the canal. I have no photographs on the walls there are no books on the shelves and the wireless broke years ago. I feel nothing, I need nothing, I want nothing. I do not read the papers and hardly watch TV. Each Friday I go out to buy groceries. I make polite conversations with the shop assistants, and my doctor thinks this is good for me. But I always rush back to the safety of my silent room with the faded old pattern on its walls. Once in a while I travel to the shop in Charlotte Street to buy flowers but she is never there. This always upsets me and my doctor thinks this is bad for me, even though this is the only time I feel alive. Like most other days, today I'm sitting at the window staring through the grimy glass at the little boats on the water. It's late in the afternoon, the end of summer and the days are now much shorter. The street is dark and nearly empty. I stare at the young girl sitting on the bench across the street. I cannot see her clearly but, I fool myself, I know it's her— it's always her. I watch her quietly until she leaves— she always leaves by eight o’clock. The hours pass until it’s time for bed but I don't move. I know sleep will not come and the nightmares will soon begin again. Part of the Old Stories cycle of poems A few words about the poem… Exploring Solitude and Longing in Melancholy Poems The poem "My Day," from the series “Melancholy Poems,” encapsulates the essence of solitude and routine, portraying a life seemingly devoid of external attachments yet punctuated by fleeting moments of connection and yearning. Through poignant imagery, the poet invites readers into the solitary existence of the protagonist, whose daily rituals serve as a fragile anchor in an otherwise empty existence. The opening lines paint a picture of stark simplicity, with the speaker inhabiting a solitary room devoid of personal adornments. The absence of photographs and books suggests a detachment from the past and a disinterest in intellectual pursuits, while the broken wireless symbolizes a disconnect from the outside world. The repetition of "nothing" emphasizes the protagonist's detachment from material desires, reinforcing the theme of emotional emptiness. Despite this apparent detachment, the speaker's weekly trips for groceries hint at a desire for human interaction, however brief. The polite conversations with shop assistants serve as a tentative connection to society, endorsed by the doctor as a form of therapeutic engagement. Yet, the protagonist's retreat to the safety of solitude underscores a deep sense of comfort in isolation, highlighting the paradoxical nature of human longing. The introduction of the flower shop and the protagonist's fondness for lilies inject a subtle note of longing and melancholy into the narrative. The absence of the desired recipient at the shop evokes a sense of unfulfilled longing, contrasting with the brief moments of vitality experienced in her presence. The doctor's disapproval underscores society's perception of the protagonist's unconventional source of solace, further isolating him from external validation. As the poem progresses, the passage of time is marked by the changing seasons and the protagonist's solitary vigil by the window. The depiction of late afternoon fading into darkness mirrors the protagonist's internal state of desolation, while the fleeting presence of the young girl across the street symbolizes a fragile hope amidst the pervasive loneliness. Despite the protagonist's longing for connection, the inevitability of her departure and the onset of night foreshadow the return of haunting nightmares and restless insomnia. In conclusion, "My Day" offers a poignant exploration of solitude, routine, and fleeting moments of connection amid emotional detachment. Through restrained language and evocative imagery, the poet invites readers to contemplate the complexities of human experience and the enduring search for meaning amidst the silence of solitary existence.

Sad-eyed girl on a water lily The rivers surged— first blood, your naked scent, ripe red strawberries in June, bread and wine on Primrose Hill. You’ve disappeared again. December—dead dreams hanging on the Christmas tree. The tired show still goes on but is it the same without Freddie? I hear, along the way, you’ve taken on another name or two. And we know you love the sea, you told the world with passion. One day, I’ll come back. Can you not see the yellow train, rusty and out of breath, puffing up the hill? We’ll walk your street again— past that fork to the broken sign, where the silence became a scream. You’ve disappeared again. Like then, we’ll sit in yesterday’s old café with a Coke and two straws, ice cubes warming up the air and maybe—just maybe—if I peel the layers… Part of the Old Stories cycle of poems A few words about the poem… The Rusted Sign and the Yellow Train: A Melancholy Poems Essay on Love, Loss, and Loneliness Old Stories, part of the poet’s ongoing series Melancholy Poems, offers a lyrical meditation on the ache of vanished presence, the persistence of memory, and the strange companionship of absence. Saturated with sadness and quiet longing, this poem distills the essence of love and loss, tracing the contours of a relationship that haunts the speaker like a familiar ghost—never fully gone, never fully returned. From the opening stanza, memory spills out in sensual detail: "your naked scent, / ripe red strawberries in June, / bread and wine on Primrose Hill." These lines evoke intimacy through taste, scent, and season, grounding the emotional tone in physical, almost Eucharistic ritual—food as memory, as communion, as yearning. The speaker remembers not through fact, but through sensation. And as quickly as this tender moment surfaces, it vanishes— “You’ve disappeared again.” The poem's first refrain lands like a heartbeat skipped, a theme set in motion that will cycle, unresolved. The speaker moves through time like a pilgrim without a map—December now, and the holidays offer no comfort. Instead, they serve as a funereal stage for “dead dreams / hanging on the Christmas tree,” casting a grim inversion of festivity. This is not nostalgia, but a melancholic awareness that even tradition cannot warm the places absence has hollowed out. And in a clever and poignant turn, the speaker wonders “is it the same without Freddie?”—a subtle nod to Queen, to music that once made even sadness glorious. Now, only the tired show remains, going on without its voice. Midway through, the poem becomes more than personal reflection—it becomes a letter, a reach across years. We hear whispers of transformation: the person once loved has “taken on another name or two,” an act that suggests not just reinvention, but escape. They are now a mythic figure—one who loves the sea, “told the world with passion,” someone who perhaps dissolved into the tides rather than confront what was left behind. But still, the speaker waits. Or rather, returns. In one of the most delicate and powerful images of the piece, we’re offered “the yellow train, / rusty and out of breath, puffing up the hillside.” The vehicle of return is tired, aged, but it is trying. This train does not promise triumph—it brings weariness, maybe futility. Yet it climbs. This becomes the quiet centre of the poem’s emotional core: even hope in this world is exhausted, yet persistent. What follows is a brief revisiting of shared geography: “that fork to the broken sign,” a place marked not by directions but by rupture. “Where the silence became a scream” is a moment of poetic crystallisation—what was left unsaid, too long restrained, finally cracked the air. The trauma is not spelled out, but its echo is everywhere. The refrain returns— “You’ve disappeared again.” This line, repeated, doesn’t change in wording, but grows in weight. It’s not just about someone leaving—it’s about someone who can no longer be held onto, even in memory. The final stanza invites a return to ritual—a quiet wish. They might again sit in “yesterday’s / old café,” a place that holds the past in its chairs and condensation-slicked glasses. The imagery of “a Coke and two straws” suggests intimacy and youth, preserved in amber. Yet even this memory, this possibility, is conditional: “maybe—just maybe—if I peel the layers…” The poem ends not with resolution, but with a hesitant touch toward revelation. The act of peeling—the slow work of uncovering, excavating, risking—is perhaps the only act of love left. Old Stories explores the devastating softness of melancholy—how it lingers in gesture and setting, how it repeats like a refrain. The speaker carries the dual burdens of loneliness and recollection, never quite able to let go of what’s lost, nor fully reconnect with what was. The poem is not simply a lament for a person; it is a lament for time itself, for the stories that once seemed permanent but now flicker like the mirage they always were. As a part of the Melancholy Poems sequence, this piece deepens the thematic terrain of the poet’s body of work, dwelling not in drama but in muted reverie, where love and loss are entwined like ghosts at a train station—never disembarking, always waiting for one more turn around the hill.

Olivia Hussey as Juliet Capuleti in the beginning— her light, always her light then noon—penicillin and a needle full of death death, so much death flows this morning in Verona and that pit, years and years deep lurking in the corner of the marble garden— arms and bones tangled, broken and the smell of death but where are her bones with the scent of honey and myrrh and who will now reap the grain from the yellow fields of August no! no! no! harvester sheath your scythe I will not let her wander all alone in the sterile garden my gentle old priest, please take this grief away from me here is a loaf of leavened bread for your kind service Part of the cycle of poems thirteen silk verses A few words about the poem… Giulietta: Love, Death, and the Fragility of Life | Cyprus Poems Within the Cyprus Poems collection, the "Thirteen Silk Verses" cycle features "Giulietta," a profound meditation on love, death, and grief. Evoking a sorrowful Verona where life and death converge amid a silent garden, its haunting echoes draw the reader into the tender yet tumultuous finality of a love story that resonates with Giulietta's legacy. The poem opens with an image of "her light, always her light," an illuminating beginning that anchors the poem's duality—between life’s vitality and the shadow of approaching loss. As noon arrives, marked by the medical intercessions of "penicillin" and "a needle full of death," the vibrant world Giulietta once inhabited surrenders to the inevitability of mortality. The scene shifts to a Verona morning flooded with death, a reminder of time’s passage and its effect on both the physical world and the human heart. In the marble garden, a deep, unseen pit holds “arms and bones / tangled, broken,” each word an artefact of shattered lives and lost stories. Yet, amidst the sorrow and decay, the speaker cannot reconcile Giulietta’s memory with this scene. Her bones, infused with "the scent of honey and myrrh," must be elsewhere, untainted by death’s touch. From here, the speaker’s grief becomes a desperate protest. Giulietta, once a source of warmth and illumination, cannot be left in this cold and desolate place. Even as the yellow fields of August await their harvester, the speaker cries out, “no! no! no! / harvester, sheath your scythe.” This plea to the harvester not to reap what remains of Giulietta in the sterile garden reflects a timeless human struggle against death’s finality. Here, the speaker’s love defies mortality itself, refusing to let her memory wander alone among the shadows. As a final act of grief and devotion, the speaker turns to a “gentle old priest,” offering a loaf of leavened bread as a humble request for solace. The gift, laden with religious significance, represents hope for spiritual healing and the easing of sorrow. Giulietta’s story concludes not in the garden’s cold isolation but in an enduring human act of love, tying the poem’s profound sorrow to the promise of remembrance. In Giulietta, part of the Thirteen Silk Verses cycle, a universal meditation on love, loss, and the solace of memory unfolds. The poem’s elegiac beauty transcends time, weaving together personal and collective grief. Through finely wrought language and imagery, it stands as both lament and tribute, drawing readers into the richly evocative world of Cyprus Poems. Analysis of Themes The poem centres on mortality, memory, and the sorrow that attends everlasting love. The choice of the name Juliet, as with the use of Eurydice and Ophelia in other poems, brings a rich literary heritage to bear, making the heroine a symbol of undying love and of remembrance that lingers beyond death. This connection to Shakespearean tragedy draws attention to the contrast between fleeting love and the speaker’s desperation to keep her memory alive. Verse Analysis The brief, intense lines in "Juliet" convey the speaker’s pain and determination to hold her close, even in eternity. The sparseness of each phrase reveals the weight of loss and the feeling of irreversibility, with every word reflecting the fragile nature of human grief. Symbolism in the Poem The poem abounds in symbolism. Juliet’s light becomes a metaphor for enduring memory and love. The “needle of death” and the decayed landscape represent humanity’s fragile state. The marble garden and the reaper with his scythe convey life’s inevitable cycle, confronting the reader with the tension between love and mortality. Main Poetic Imagery Through imagery, the poem connects readers to the speaker’s deep sorrow for his lost love, expressing his desire to preserve her memory. The contrasts between decay and eternity, shadow and light, capture a human struggle against time’s passage. The intertwined, broken bones embody humanity’s vulnerability yet also reveal the lasting imprint of a profound love. Impact of Religious Symbolism The religious tone deepens as the speaker, unable to part with Juliet in this sterile, sombre garden, turns to a revered elder, begging for solace. The elder, a figure of spiritual authority, represents a hope for comfort. Meanwhile, the reaper pauses, his scythe suspended, an unspoken appeal for spiritual peace and redemption. Juliet thus becomes a symbol not only of eternal love but also of the deeply human wish to transcend loss through faith. In this way, Juliet serves as a timeless reflection on the universality of love and loss, grounding these experiences in human faith and memory. The name Juliet enriches the narrative, connecting the poem to a tradition of mournful tales and elevating the sorrow of loss to a contemplative quest for memory and redemption.

River at dusk, echoes of grief and loss Swallows still flew carefree in the July sky — ironic! Summer would be ending at the start of August. At the twilight of the day, we meet in the silent garden of the obscured. We reach out but we can never touch. Shadows drift across her eyes, she whispers to me, but I do not hear her — I am terrified, will I forget her voice? Decades in the Nether World. I breathe life into you and thousands around the world now know the tale. Yet I keep your name a secret. The acacia trees still bloom in springtime; it was never meant to be our time. I smile for our days of May and grieve for the nearing days of winter. Part of the cycle of poems thirteen silk verses A few words about the poem… Cyprus Poems: A Summer Tale of Death, Grief and Loss “A Summer Tale,” part of the wider cycle Cyprus Poems and structurally aligned with Thirteen Silk Verses, functions as a threshold poem. It does not tell a story, nor does it resolve tension. Instead, it sets the emotional, temporal, and metaphysical ground on which the sequence stands. From the opening stanza, grief, memory, and loss are presented not as events, but as ongoing states. These inner conditions unfold against a natural world that continues without pause or concern. The image of swallows flying in August is central to this contrast. Their movement is described as carefree and explicitly marked as “ironic.” The birds do not witness loss; they ignore it. Life continues with rhythm and ease, while the speaker’s own season has already ended. The poem does not describe grief directly. Instead, it allows the reader to feel it through this disjunction between personal devastation and external normality. The line “Summer would be ending at the start of August.” is deliberately plain. It avoids lyric flourish or metaphor. Here, summer is not only a season, but a shared time abruptly cut short. The possessive “our” shifts the focus from individual pain to relational loss. At the same time, the pluperfect tense (“had ended”) creates distance. The loss is not unfolding now; it is already complete and beyond repair. Grief enters the poem as something final, not provisional. In the second stanza, the poem moves into an uncertain metaphysical space described as “the silent garden of the obscured.” This is not a traditional underworld or a consoling afterlife. It is a place of partial presence, where boundaries remain unclear. The meeting between speaker and beloved occurs “at the twilight of the day,” a moment that mirrors the poem’s wider concern with thresholds. Life and death, memory and forgetting, presence and absence all remain unresolved. Touch and voice appear throughout the poem as failed means of connection. The speaker cannot touch the beloved, reinforcing separation not only through death but through time. More unsettling is the failure of sound. The beloved whispers, yet the speaker cannot hear. This introduces a second loss: the possible loss of memory itself. When the speaker asks whether he will forget her voice, the poem moves beyond elegy. It becomes an inquiry into what remains when even memory begins to erode. Later, the poem turns briefly toward its own public life. The speaker reflects on having given the beloved a form of life through poetry. Thousands may know her story, yet her name remains withheld. This tension between exposure and protection is deliberate. The beloved is shared, but never fully surrendered. Anonymity does not diminish her presence; it preserves it. The poem draws a clear ethical line between private grief and public art. In the final stanza, nature returns. Acacia trees bloom, seasons shift, and time moves forward. Yet the poem refuses comfort. Renewal offers no healing. The line “It was never meant to be our time” rejects any redemptive reading of natural cycles. The world continues, but the loss remains. Seasonal change does not restore what has been taken; it only frames the speaker’s movement toward his own finitude. Within Cyprus Poems, “A Summer Tale” serves as an orienting poem rather than a narrative one. It presents grief as atmosphere, not spectacle. Despair is not dramatized; it is lived. The poem resists consolation and avoids catharsis. It does not argue with death or seek transcendence. Instead, it endures. Memory persists, fully aware of its own fragility, and that awareness becomes the poem’s quiet strength.

Love among the flowers Lies, lies, lies— she still lights the dawn. The world speaks lies, only the gypsy speaks the truth. We carved our monogram on the walls of the tiny chapel— first and last, it’s always you. Our scented little garden breathes carnations and jasmine. You touch me, I tremble and when night falls, we lie skin on skin and say welcome to our children yet unborn. On Saturdays, hand in hand we saunter to the village cinema with a swarm of strapping sons and a daughter with black curls, beautiful as her mother. I passed your house today. It smelled of lavender and basil, the door was bolted shut and a pitch-black ribbon tied to your bedroom window. A few words about the poem… In Our Little Garden: Grief, Loss, and the Denial of Death - Cyprus Poems “In Our Little Garden,” a poem in the series Thirteen Silk Verses and within the broader cycle Cyprus Poems, occupies a carefully delimited space. It is not representative of the series as a whole, nor does it attempt to summarise its concerns. Instead, it narrows the field of vision, focusing on a single imagined domestic world in order to explore how love and death coexist within memory. In this sense, the series Thirteen Silk Verses provides the landscape and horizon, while “In Our Little Garden” remains firmly grounded in a specific, intimate enclosure. The poem is defined by its economy and its refusal of overt explanation. Here, the garden functions not as symbol in the abstract but as a lived space: cultivated, shared, and temporal. It is a place where the future is imagined—children welcomed before they are born—and where that imagined continuity is later confronted by irreversible loss. The poem does not elevate the garden into metaphor; it allows it to remain ordinary, and thereby capable of holding grief. Unlike other poems in Cyprus Poems, which may draw more explicitly on geography, history, or communal memory, “In Our Little Garden” is inward-looking. Cyprus is present indirectly, through custom and scent, through the village cinema and the funerary use of lavender and basil. These elements are not explanatory markers of place; they operate quietly, assuming cultural knowledge rather than displaying it. The poem’s restraint ensures that Cyprus remains a lived background rather than a theme. Love “In Our Little Garden” is rendered without declaration. It appears in proximity, touch, and shared routines. The poem resists the language of devotion or transcendence, presenting love instead as something habitual and bodily, embedded in daily life. This understated approach is essential to the poem’s coming-of-age dimension. The transition it records is not from youth to adulthood in any conventional sense, but from imagined plenitude to the knowledge of finitude. Love does not prevent death; it simply precedes it. Death itself is introduced obliquely and late. The poem does not narrate an event but registers its consequences: a house passed in daylight, a bolted door, a black ribbon tied to a bedroom window. The specificity of the bedroom matters. It localises grief, returning it to youth, privacy, and interrupted intimacy. This narrowing of focus is deliberate. Where Cyprus Poems as a cycle may open outward, “In Our Little Garden” closes in. As part of the series Thirteen Silk Verses, the poem participates in a larger meditation on fragility and endurance, but it does so without claiming authority beyond its own bounds. It does not speak for Cyprus, nor does it attempt to universalise its loss. Instead, it offers a single, carefully held instance of remembrance. The world may “speak lies,” but the poem does not argue with the world; it quietly preserves what the world cannot keep. In this way, “In Our Little Garden” exemplifies how a poem can remain small in scale while carrying serious emotional weight. Within the architecture of Cyprus Poems, it stands not as a thematic centre but as a private room—entered briefly, left intact, and remembered for its silence as much as for its words.

A Journey of Despair My darling one, there is no room for misfits like us in the land of milk and honey. They are closing down the border. My wayward mistress’ eyes— shadows fall across her wisdom shaped by aged gurus of the East; flung aside, she lies by the river shivering with doubt and fear. A perfect match for one another— I, a mariner without a compass and she, an aimless carpetbagger who has lost her way to Shambhala. I ask a preacher for the quay but he laughs and says that boat has sailed, more than a year ago. He leers at my lover’s silent beauty and sells me a jar of his finest cure— a miracle to heal my misplaced ambition for a return befitting only heroes. She tells me of her contempt for me and so, we settle for a junk boat sailing the Magdalena River. The captain is delirious, the helm is broken and the flag is raised: Lulled for days and weeks on end, we sway to a bootleg song on loop by a band of bandits on the run. Part of the mosaics cycle of poems A few words about the poem: Poems of Despair: Exile and Illusion on the Magdalena Adrift on the Magdalena, within the landscape of Poems of Despair, unfolds as a meditation on dislocation, failed return, and the quiet collapse of shared illusion. It belongs not only to poems of despair, but equally to poems of loss and poems of illusion and deception, where intimacy becomes inseparable from estrangement. The poem resists dramatic climax; instead, it constructs a slow drift into resignation, rendered through the language of surreal poetry and subdued narrative fracture. The opening stanza establishes a dual axis: intimacy and exclusion. The address, “My darling one,” suggests closeness, yet this is immediately undercut by the declaration that “there is no room for misfits like us.” The collective “us” is already displaced, defined negatively by what it cannot enter. The “land of milk and honey” introduces a biblical register, but its promise is hollowed out; access is denied not through explicit violence but through quiet closure: “They are closing down the border.” The line carries no urgency, only inevitability. The poem begins, therefore, not with action, but with acceptance of exclusion. The second stanza shifts into a more interior, almost mythic register. The mistress is both figure and symbol: her “wisdom shaped by aged gurus of the East” suggests taught knowledge, yet it is obscured by shadows. The syntax allows the image to unfold gradually, as if the speaker himself is unsure of what he perceives. The movement from elevated origin (“gurus of the East”) to physical abandonment (“flung aside… by the river”) establishes a pattern that will persist: all grandeur collapses into inertia. The river, already present, begins to function as a spatial metaphor for drift, not movement. In the third stanza, the relationship is defined through parallel failure. The narrator’s “mariner without a compass” and the lover’s “aimless carpetbagger” are not opposites but reflections. The reference to Shambhala reinforces the sense of unattainable destination; it is less a place than an idea that has already been lost. The concluding line, “A perfect match for one another,” introduces a quiet irony: compatibility emerges not from harmony, but from shared disorientation. This is a union sustained not by alignment, but by the absence of direction. The fourth stanza introduces an external figure—the preacher—yet he offers no guidance. The request for the quay, a place of departure or arrival, is met with laughter. The phrase “that boat has sailed” operates both as idiom and literal image, collapsing metaphor into narrative. The temporal distance—“more than a year ago”—further emphasizes the belatedness of the speaker’s desire. What is sought is no longer available, if it ever was. In the fifth stanza, the tone shifts subtly toward the grotesque. The preacher becomes a vendor, selling a “jar of his finest cure.” The language of commerce replaces that of guidance, and the miracle offered is directed not at suffering, but at ambition. The speaker’s “misplaced ambition for a return befitting only heroes” reveals the central illusion: the belief in a triumphant return. This is not simply a desire for reunion, but for recognition, even redemption. The poem exposes this as delusion, aligning itself with poems of illusion and deception, where the self is implicated in its own misreading of reality. The sixth stanza resolves the tension not through reconciliation, but through collapse. The lover’s contempt is stated plainly, without ornament. The response is not rupture, but compromise: “we settle for a junk boat.” The verb “settle” carries the weight of resignation, suggesting a choice made without conviction. The Magdalena River, now explicitly named, becomes the space of their shared condition: not a path, but a medium of drift. The final stanza completes the movement into stasis. The imagery—delirious captain, broken helm, raised flag—suggests exclusion and motion without control. The colon introduces a suspended state: “Lulled for days and weeks on end.” Time becomes indistinct, measured only in repetition. The “bootleg song on loop” reinforces this circularity, while the “band of bandits on the run” introduces a final, faint echo of movement that never materializes. The poem ends not with resolution, but with continuation: a drift that has no destination and no end. In this way, Adrift on the Magdalena situates itself within the broader tradition of poems of loss and surreal poetry, where narrative coherence is secondary to emotional truth. The poem does not seek to resolve its tensions; instead, it inhabits them. Its strength lies in its restraint, in its refusal to dramatize what is already inevitable. The result is a work that lingers, not through declaration, but through the quiet persistence of its images.

The Director's Dark Cut My impulsive child astride a white swan, gallops away from Parnassus. Calliope is incandescent.   She has cast her morals down the gorge and claims to be faithful to a reckless man who wants to make her happy.   Such folly, we both know happiness is only fit for fools. A waste of spirit, she was born to be the queen of verse. Perhaps even to tower over Plath.   And what of me? Still pretending to be a minstrel but without a song. Our wasted gifts: we needed each other’s pain to thrive.   I scold myself each morning, poetry is not a serious job. Perhaps I ought to learn to be a man with wealth, power, and gravitas.   It's always the same though. When night falls, I worry I'm beginning to be sensible. My fate has always been to live inside the eye of the storm.   Wearing my Venetian mask I step onto the stage with such panache, an actor extraordinaire. Yet each day, I sink into her world of familiar turmoil and the endless cycle begins once more.   Was I in truth the supreme director? I wrote the script and had assembled a troupe of two-bit actors for my story, but now the film is in the cutting room. The editor has in mind another version.   Part of the mosaics   cycle of poems A few words about the poem…   Poems of Despair: Performance, Authorship, and the Illusion of Control in The Director   The Director   from the series Poems of Despair , confront not only emotional suffering but the deeper structures that give suffering meaning. The poem, which belongs to the cycle Mosaics , i s a striking example of this tradition. Rather than offering a direct lament, the poem stages despair as a form of intellectual drama, where love, identity, and artistic vocation become entangled in a subtle exploration of loss, loneliness, and sadness.   From the opening stanza, the poem establishes a tension between artistic destiny and ordinary happiness. The beloved is described as having abandoned “Parnassus,” a symbolic departure from poetic aspiration in favour of lived experience. This choice is framed not simply as a personal decision but as a moral failure. The speaker interprets happiness as a betrayal of a higher calling, reducing it to something “fit for fools.” In this worldview, despair is not accidental but necessary. It becomes the price of artistic seriousness, while happiness appears vulgar, shallow, and unworthy of depth.   This initial judgement already reveals the poem’s central conflict. The speaker does not merely mourn a lost relationship; he resents the beloved for choosing life over suffering; toxic love , in this sense, is not defined by cruelty or manipulation, but by incompatible values. One character seeks emotional survival, the other aesthetic meaning. Their bond collapses because it was sustained by shared pain rather than mutual care. The line “We needed each other’s pain to thrive” articulates this logic with brutal clarity. Love becomes a mechanism for generating despair, not alleviating it.   Yet the poem refuses to leave the speaker in a position of moral superiority. Almost immediately, the narrative turns inward. The question “And what of me?” shifts the focus from accusation to self-examination. The image of the minstrel without a song exposes a hollow identity. The speaker claims the role of poet but lacks the creative substance to justify it. This is a crucial moment, because it reveals that the condemnation of the beloved may conceal deeper insecurity. The speaker’s despair is not only about loss, but about the fear that his own suffering has failed to produce anything meaningful.   Here, loneliness takes on a complex form. It is not merely the absence of the beloved, but the absence of a coherent self. The speaker is isolated within his own performance, pretending to inhabit a vocation that no longer feels authentic. His sadness is not only emotional but existential. He does not know who he is without the narrative of shared suffering that once defined the relationship.   The middle stanzas deepen this crisis by introducing social and cultural pressures. The speaker imagines abandoning poetry in favour of wealth, power, and gravitas. This fantasy is framed ironically, as something to be “learned,” suggesting that social authority is as artificial as artistic identity. Yet the temptation is real. It represents a desire to escape despair by adopting externally validated roles. If poetry leads only to loneliness and loss, perhaps conformity offers a safer form of meaning.   However, this alternative proves equally unsatisfying. The speaker admits that when night falls, he worries he is “beginning to be sensible.” Sensibility, usually associated with maturity and balance, becomes a source of anxiety. To become sensible is to accept limitation, to relinquish the grand narratives that justify suffering. In this line, despair reveals itself as addictive. The speaker fears not pain, but recovery. Toxic love has trained him to equate intensity with authenticity, and ordinary life now feels like betrayal.   At first glance, the figure of the “impulsive child” appears to refer to a specific person, one who turns away from the demands of art toward the promise of a simpler happiness. Yet the imagery complicates this reading. The presence of Parnassus, the white swan, and Calliope places the figure within a symbolic and mythic register. What we are witnessing is not merely a personal fall, but a staged departure from artistic vocation. The act is not passive. She does not lose her place; she abandons it. In casting her morals down the mountain, she performs a deliberate rejection of the discipline and severity that art requires.   The metaphor of living “in the eye of the storm” captures this condition perfectly. The speaker exists in a suspended state, neither fully committed to despair nor capable of escaping it. He inhabits a false calm surrounded by emotional chaos. This is not heroic suffering but stagnation. The storm continues, but the speaker remains motionless at its centre, protected yet imprisoned by his own narrative.   The theatrical imagery that follows reinforces this instability of identity. The narrator steps onto the stage with measured confidence, “with such panache,” assuming the role of an actor who appears in control of his performance. Yet this composure is immediately undermined by repetition. Each day, he sinks once more into the familiar turmoil of her world. The movement is not forward but circular. The performance does not liberate him; it binds him to the same pattern. The self that performs and the self that suffers are no longer distinct.   This cyclical pattern is one of the poem’s most disturbing features. Despair is no longer a crisis but a habit. Sadness loses its urgency and becomes predictable, almost comfortable. Toxic love persists not through passion, but through repetition. The speaker returns to suffering because it is familiar, not because it is meaningful.   The final stanza introduces the poem’s most radical shift. The speaker questions whether he was ever truly the “supreme director” of the story. This doubt dismantles the entire framework of authority established earlier. The claim to authorship—the belief that he wrote the script and assigned roles—collapses under scrutiny. The transition from theatre to film is significant. In film, meaning is not created in the moment of performance, but in the process of editing. Control is deferred, distributed, and ultimately lost.   The editor, who “has in mind another version,” becomes the poem’s most powerful figure. Unlike the speaker, the editor is anonymous, impersonal, and external. This suggests that memory, time, and survival are the true forces shaping the narrative. The speaker’s despair, once treated as destiny, is revealed as provisional. His interpretation of toxic love may not survive the editing process. The story will be revised, whether he consents or not.   This ending is deeply unsettling because it offers no redemption. The poem does not replace despair with hope or sadness with insight. Instead, it removes the speaker’s authority altogether. He is no longer the hero of his suffering, nor even its author. He becomes material to be reworked by forces beyond his control.   In this sense, the poem exemplifies the most honest form of Poems of Despair. It does not aestheticize suffering or present loneliness as noble. Instead, it exposes the subtle ways in which despair can become ideology. The speaker’s attachment to sadness is not tragic in the romantic sense, but tragic in its futility. He has built an identity around loss, only to discover that loss does not guarantee meaning.   The final insight of the poem is therefore bleak but precise: suffering does not make one significant, and pain does not confer authorship. Toxic love is not intense because it is profound, but because it is unresolved. Loneliness persists not because it is necessary, but because it has been mistaken for destiny.   By ending with revision rather than revelation, the poem refuses closure. It leaves the reader not with answers, but with the unsettling recognition that despair itself may be subject to editing. And in that possibility lies the poem’s quiet, paradoxical power: not the promise of escape, but the recognition that even sadness is not finally ours to command.

Nuclear War Armageddon has begun. Can you not hear the sound of seven trumpets? Noah's ark is sinking fast. Time has stopped and all that live are going to die. Eagles swoop down on the little white doves tearing their flesh apart. Vultures dressed as lions come out of mushroom clouds spreading death across the land. Villages and cities burn. Corpses lay on mountainsides and maggots feast on rotting flesh. In bloodied seas and murky rivers drowned men with bloated bodies go floating on the water. Mother, Father go looking for your sons go looking for your daughters go looking for each other. Mother, Father don't you know, tonight is going to be your turn to die. A few words about the poem… An Apocalyptic Vision of a Nuclear War | Anti-War Poems " The Sound of Seven Trumpets" conjures a vivid and harrowing depiction of an apocalyptic scenario. Through stark and unsettling imagery, the poem immerses readers in a world on the brink of annihilation. It begins with the emphatic declaration of Armageddon, immediately establishing an atmosphere of impending doom. The question posed, "Can you not hear the sound of seven trumpets?" invokes the biblical reference to the Book of Revelation, where the sounding of trumpets signifies the onset of divine judgment. This allusion sets the stage for the catastrophic events that follow, grounding the poem in a tradition of prophetic literature.   The metaphor of Noah's ark sinking fast underscores the hopelessness of the situation. Unlike the biblical ark, which was a vessel of salvation, this sinking ark symbolizes the failure of any escape or refuge. The cessation of time further heightens the sense of inevitability and finality, suggesting that all forms of life are on the verge of extinction. This imagery conveys a profound sense of despair, as it becomes clear that no one can escape the approaching doom.   As the poem progresses, the imagery becomes increasingly graphic and disturbing. Eagles swooping down on little white doves symbolizes the destruction of peace and innocence. The mention of vultures dressed as lions emerging from mushroom clouds introduces a dual symbol of both death and deception. Lions, typically seen as noble and powerful, are here associated with the fallout of nuclear devastation, implying that even the mightiest are tainted by this catastrophe. This metaphorical language underscores the pervasive and inescapable nature of the destruction.   The landscape painted by the poem is one of utter desolation. Villages and cities burn, leaving behind a charred and lifeless expanse. The presence of corpses on mountainsides and the gruesome image of maggots feasting on rotting flesh emphasize the grotesque aftermath of the apocalypse. The depiction of drowned men with bloated bodies in bloodied seas and murky rivers adds to the sense of pervasive decay and corruption. These vivid descriptions serve to immerse the reader in the horrific reality of this imagined end of the world.   Amidst the broader canvas of devastation, the poem introduces a deeply personal and poignant element through the repeated plea to parents. The lines "Mother, Father, go and look for your son, go and look for your daughter, go looking for each other" evoke the universal and primal fear of losing loved ones. This repetition underscores the desperation and helplessness felt by those who are left to search in vain. The call to parents highlights the intimate human cost of the apocalypse, contrasting the vast scale of destruction with individual tragedies.   The poem concludes with a sombre and chilling warning. The statement "Mother, Father, don't you know, tonight is going to be your turn to die" reinforces the inescapable nature of the apocalypse. This final line brings the universal theme of mortality into sharp focus, suggesting that no one is exempt from the impending doom. The poem's ending leaves readers with a sense of profound inevitability, as the cycle of life and death reaches its terminal point.   "The Sound of Seven Trumpets," from the series “Anti-War Poems,” weaves together biblical allusion, vivid imagery, and personal tragedy to create a portrayal of an apocalyptic vision. The poem's stark and unflinching depiction of destruction and death serves as a meditation on the fragility of life and the inescapable nature of mortality. Through its evocative language and haunting imagery, the poem leaves a lasting impression of doom and despair, inviting readers to reflect on the profound themes it explores.

Toxic Love in Unravelling Worlds Once, I was a poet. Now I scribble garbled words for pennies that no one ever reads. The master will not redeem me— I rebelled against the teachers of the metre.   All the horrors of my life—stacks of pages pasted on the tunnel walls. I'm nothing now — I wonder, was I ever more than just a gypsy? My pen is dry and my poems are fake.   Your smoke signals are so vague. A modern-day Odysseus, I sail my wrecked schooner to the world you borrowed— a seething world of green and rage.   My colossus of the perfect rhyme, you should not have wasted your gift! How will I know it’s you when we meet? Have you changed much? I never really knew you then though, did I? The pantomime of our life begins: There is a monkey perched on the shoulder of the moon and you my love, fiddling old tunes on your pretend Stradivarius violin.   All the time, the little voice gets louder. She shrieks in my ear—you are so wrong. And even though it’s crazy I wait for you each dusk by the shore.   Drifting down south, I thank her for a lifetime of sadness. She cries, she quivers, and calls me a pervert, but who will get to press the button first?   Part of the Mosaics   cycle of poems   A few words about the poem… Toxic Love and Desire in Unravelling Worlds   Toxic Love sits at the centre of Unravelling Worlds , a poem from the cycle Mosaics , not as a theme to be denounced but as a condition to be inhabited. From its opening lines, the poem announces a voice already compromised: a former poet who frames his present self as diminished, displaced, and suspect. What unfolds is not a confession seeking absolution, nor an accusation aimed cleanly at another, but a fractured meditation on desire, dependency, and the difficulty of knowing where responsibility truly lies. Toxic love here is not merely destructive attachment; it is a landscape the speaker continues to traverse even as he claims to leave it.   The first paragraph of the poem establishes a familiar posture of rebellion—against metre, authority, mastery—but it quickly becomes clear that this rebellion is less aesthetic than existential. The speaker’s defiance of “the teachers of the metre” echoes throughout the poem as a resistance to imposed structures: artistic, moral, emotional. Yet this resistance is hollowed out. He scribbles “for pennies,” unheard and unread, suggesting not heroic marginality but exhaustion. Toxic love often begins in such spaces: where self-worth has already thinned, and attachment becomes a substitute for coherence.   The poem’s world is layered with images of enclosure and inscription. Tunnel walls, pasted pages, graffiti—these are not sites of liberation but of repetition. The horrors of a life are not transcended through poetry; they are stuck to surfaces, accumulated rather than resolved. This sense of being trapped inside one’s own narrative is crucial. The speaker does not claim victimhood alone; he acknowledges fakery, contraband, imposture. Toxic love thrives on such self-knowledge without self-release: knowing one is compromised but continuing anyway.   Into this psychic landscape enters the narrator’s lover, signalled first through absence and ambiguity: “Your smoke signals are so vague.” Communication exists, but it is unreliable, mediated, distorted. The speaker styles himself as a modern Odysseus, yet his voyage lacks epic clarity. He sails not toward home but toward “the world you borrowed”—a striking phrase that suggests impermanence, occupation without ownership. The lover’s world is lush, green, seething with rage, but it is not grounded. It is a place one can enter but not inhabit securely. Toxic love often borrows such worlds: intense, immersive emotional climates that feel vital yet cannot sustain life.   One of the poem’s most telling tensions appears in the address to the beloved as “my colossus of the perfect rhyme.” On one level, this is praise—an acknowledgement of artistic or emotional magnitude. On another, it is an admission of imbalance. A colossus dominates the landscape; it reshapes proportion. The speaker both venerates and resents this dominance, questioning whether the beloved has wasted her gift, whether he ever truly knew her. These questions are not rhetorical. They cut at the heart of toxic attachment: the slow realisation that intimacy may have been projection, that what felt monumental may have been misread or in reality may have never existed.   The poem’s surreal imagery—monkeys dancing on the moon, pretend Stradivarius violins—pushes the relationship further into instability. These are not whimsical flourishes but signals of dissonance. Artifice and performance replace authenticity; value is mimicked rather than possessed. Yet the speaker remains drawn to these images. He is not disillusioned enough to detach. Toxic love persists not because it deceives entirely, but because it offers moments of enchantment that feel irreplaceable, even when recognised as false.   A crucial shift occurs when the “little voice” grows louder. This voice may be conscience, memory, internalised accusation, or the lover’s echo. The poem refuses to stabilise it. What matters is that the voice speaks in absolutes—“you are so wrong”—while the speaker continues to wait “each dusk by the shore.” Waiting is an act of hope and submission at once. The shore, a liminal space, reinforces the poem’s refusal of resolution. He neither returns fully nor departs cleanly.   The final movement of the poem gestures toward departure—“Trekking down south”—yet even this is compromised. The speaker thanks her “for a lifetime of sadness,” a line balanced between irony and genuine reckoning. Gratitude and grievance coexist. When she cries, quivers, and calls him a pervert, the accusation lands without clarification. Is this her voice, his memory, or his self-judgment? The poem does not answer. Instead, it ends on a chilling question: “who will get to press the button first?” Toxic love is framed not as mutual healing gone wrong, but as mutual destruction delayed by dependence.   What makes Unravelling Worlds  resonate is its openness. The poem does not instruct the reader how to judge the relationship. It allows multiple readings: a mutually damaging affair, a projection sustained by need, or even a solitary consciousness inventing an adversary to survive its own contradictions. Sadness, loss, and loneliness are not outcomes here; they are conditions already in place, shaping desire and being shaped by it.   As part of the Mosaics cycle, the poem functions as a tessera—a fragment whose meaning deepens when placed beside others. Alone, it captures a single emotional geometry; within the cycle, it suggests repetition, variation, and recurrence. Toxic love, in this sense, is not a singular event but a pattern, one that resists neat closure.   In the end, Unravelling Worlds  does not offer redemption. It offers recognition. And for many readers, that may be enough: to see their own borrowed worlds reflected, green and seething, and to understand that leaving them is rarely as simple as pressing a button.