Born of simple peasant stock in a Lithuanian mountain village George (or Georgeous as he was christened) rose meteorically to become Yachtsman of the Year 1928-29, the same year in which he bravely attempted to stop the Cowes Powerboat race in nothing more than a rubber dinghy. Now aged 102 he has largely retired from water sports and returned to his first love, crochet, with which he stitches words together to make highly decorative and much sought after place mats. His like will not be seen again.

Hear George reading on Express FM (mp3 file – 56mb)

See George reading ‘Death Poem’ at Write Angle (You Tube Video)

See also: Fishouse Poems

Full tide, Chichester Lake

The cold
gleams on still water
for an angler,
smoking a roll-up under the winter trees,
whose line enters
a white cloud. A tender

putters up the channel
to moorings off Dell Quay. One
two, gunshots from the woods
and a hundred Brent geese
grumble into loose wedges
to straggle away

along the lake to where
some daredevil
spirals a small plane
up the late glow
and somersaults in the reddening west.
When quiet creeps back

two thrush-breasted pipits
play where ripples lick the shore
while out on the mirror
a grebe vanishes.
I dare not move
or breathe too much

or the lake will wobble
and I will be filled again by me.