Category Archives: My Poems

Rain drops drumming on the roof. Do they soothe or do they torment? Relentless unanswered questions: Safety or risk, bravery or fear, Overwhelm, abandonment, Blame or shame, love or hate? – Who am I? A curse of adaptation, or did … Continue reading →

Days of winter wet, overcoat days and duck down nights. We wake to analyze the shuttered light, peering through the gloom, And listen for the telltale signs: rustling leaves? splattering rain? Our blanket moods grown heavy with the wait. But … Continue reading →

Layers of pink-edged cloud hang limpid in the silent dawn, waiting for the autumn sun to dissolve them into a blue expanse of sky. One cloud clings to the mountain as if wanting to stay earthbound, afraid of losing itself … Continue reading →

Walking from Swyre to the sea with Guido 2011 Grey dawn, walking step by step on wet grass. Swish and sigh of soft breeze through tired leaves. Conscious breath, reciting His name, sensing the essence. Deep longing of the lover … Continue reading →

Strong fingers grip the hand plane’s handle. Blade slick sharp glides with a swish. Shavings stream away like cut curls to the floor. Saw’s teeth marks fade from the rough plank. Satin smooth surface reveals lines of grain, called ‘figure’. … Continue reading →

Terraced olives hug the mountain sides snaking their contours in ordered lines. Dense woodland wraps around these groves, still gripped by dormant winter, impersonal, withholding and silent.   Chromium yellow eye-fulls of joy, cascading waterfalls of electric sunlight light up … Continue reading →

Late Spring – by Paul Swatridge The tall trees shimmer. The fresh canopies of green shine translucent against the azure blue above. Where the woodland floor was dappled with colour and light a sombre mood now sits. Celandines violets and … Continue reading →

Mother Earth, Nature’s Child – by Paul Swatridge The River Wriggle was its name. Snaking through meadows beneath whitebeam and alder, it babbled over shingle beds speaking to noone. Its still pools lazing under earth banks and tree roots; dark, mysterious … Continue reading →

WILD ONE by Paul Swatridge (Record of a dream, written on a train, given to a stranger) I live, I am alive, but forget to remember this. So now, knowing it, I celebrate, defying the numbness of my other life. In … Continue reading →

Change by Paul Swatridge                1990 I stand by the brook and listen to water rushing under the bridge. I step into the darkness beyond the street lamp’s reach and hear the restless sighing … Continue reading →