Joe Sharp On the bridge of AvignonAll are dancing, all are dancingOn the bridge of AvignonAll are dancing round and roundYoung men they are dancingThey carry on romancing On the bridge of AvignonAll are dancing, all are dancingOn the bridge of AvignonAll are dancing round and roundFair ladies they are…

Katherine Mansfield (1888 – 1923) Outside the sky is light with stars;There’s a hollow roaring from the sea.And, alas! for the little almond flowers,The wind is shaking the almond tree. How little I thought, a year ago,In the horrible cottage upon the LeeThat he and I should be sitting soAnd sipping…

Joe Sharp A patient man is a priceless pearlA proper prince among paupersSlow to ponder time to dwellA fragrant meadow for green grasshoppers A happy man is a fertile furrowA hayfield buzzing in Mother Nature’s holdA bunny rabbit beside the warren’s burrowSifting sand to find the pot of gold A…

Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928) (A Reminiscence, 1893) She wore a ‘terra-cotta’ dress, And we stayed, because of the pelting storm, Within the hansom’s dry recess, Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless We sat on, snug and warm. Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain,And the glass…

Christopher Logue (b 1926) Last night in London AirportI saw a wooden binlabelled UNWANTED LITERATUREIS TO BE PLACED HEREINSo I wrote a poemand popped it in.

ANNE RANASINGHE I Have Forsworn You I have forsworn you, closed all memory;I work and eat, listen to music, sleep,Walk in the garden, watch the changing moonPretending that I have no need of you.But all the while I know it is not true.Your silence weaves around me such a tight…

Joe Sharp What can I dae aboot this continual dreepin’Frae my nose a’ the day even when I’m sleepin’The Doctor says he can dae naethin’ aboot itHe said it’s no’ like somethin’ ye can take it oot an’ shoot it I went tae the Chemist tae pick up my prescriptionAn’…

Kim McMillon The moon fell into the ocean amiss the cloudy night colored eyes gazed out trying to capture every emotion every feeling I was gliding falling with the moon into a sea of sensuality.

first poem in a poem cycle in progress 1995/2007 The title of this cycle is taken from The Song of Amergin: “said to have been chanted by the chief bard of the Milesian invaders as he set foot on the soil of Ireland in the year of the world 2376…

Joe Sharp The Lady Marionette Jojo feels an urging to do somethingAn itchy twitching in the coiling of a stringA youthful longing to be tapping tippy toesTo the lively music of the piping piccolos In his dreams he dances to the minuetWith Annabelle the lovely Lady MarionetteJojo fears his frame…

Preface to Alphabet. It was May 2008. I had just finished reading Louis de Bernières’ Birds without wings when hate spread her ugly wings, over Johannesburg. They called it xenophobia! Phobia is fear This was raw idiotic cannibalistic atavistic animal hate! So Louis de Bernières description or the raw idiotic…