Family from Portsmouth, but born in Birmingham in 1965, grew up in Frome, lived in London, now back in Portsmouth, (don’t mention that song from the Lion King…). In my other life working in recruitment, have had some success with poems in magazines such as Acumen, Orbis, Envoi, Brittle Star, South, Frogmore Papers, Poetry Monthly etc. Maybe a collection one day. Involved in T & G since 2007, on the committee since 2009, helped with the selection of poems for the Portsmouth anthology; organized and hosted ‘Poetry of Exile’ evening.

The Last Wolves of England

My son is at the age for nightmares,
he says a wolf is in his room,
I tell him how it can’t be true.

He points at a belt-strap of blackness,
a shadow in the corner,
the gap between two doors.

Memory grows from coppiced thought,
the warm slab of a wardrobe,
the trees where we once stood.

I want to tell him how it might have been,
of the last recorded hunting,
before our history begins its fade.

But breathing settles and deepens,
he rolls on to his side,
mind calmed for now till dawn.

I sit and watch the bulb burn through,
pull back the curtains,
the only light in the street.

First published in Envoi (November 2009)