We know summer will fade, the year will end, family, friends and one-time lovers will die, lost somewhere in the cycle of moments together… yet even the Edinburgh Tattoo gives tribute to David Bowie, playing Life on Mars to the
August – by Steve Walter
One by one, tall heads of lavender are bobbing with the weight of bees as they cling, gather nectar, and leave… and you beside me in the sun, naked, except for lingerie. Today is the day – but we don’t
Just to be – by Steve Walter
Just to be, in silence in the woods at dusk, the last sun sinking, to celebrate the turning of the day, the cycle of the moon, a world full of tomorrows.
Houdini’s Wife – by Amy Schreibman Walter
He didn’t try to make you disappear or hide you away – boxed, bikinied. The others emerged from wooden chests, dark places. Like butterflies, but dusty. He didn’t try to make you disappear – his departures were enough. The others
Continuity – by Marie Barrett
Delving in his garden High up on the North Downs My father came upon a strange stone, Shiny, sandy-coloured with darker lines Running through it. Seventy million years ago the geologists reckoned This stone was laid down upon the sea’s
In A Blue Moon – by Ted Walter
Glass a yet silent, milk bottles, poised above concrete, suspend my evening ritual as tall, slow-striding Orion gathers momentum, hurdling rooftops. His bright constellation dwindles beyond shadow; the wings of my childhood folding, unfolding, lifting through dewfall. Beyond the bright
Playing birdsong for grandad – by Steve Walter
The window to the ward is ajar, there is a slight breeze he is barely awake but he knows we are there, and all we have to do is open the card – so the blackbird sings – and he
Smart for four – by Steve Walter
I still drive grandad’s car, son, 70,000 miles on the clock and I cry every morning as I take the driving seat and turn the ignition.
Blue Jacket – by Steve Walter
And now she reads to me from the book I bought her: Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit. She is eighty-seven And I am fifty-six.
Ted Walter – Policeman Poet
Ted made an appearance on Nationwide near the time of this article (and was interviewed by Sue Lawley, no less) as the Policeman Poet. Here he is at Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.
O – by Steve Walter
To utter the perfect word the perfect sequence of words, to embrace the Theory of Everything including love in this bed on these sheets, at this dawn.
But the wine and the song…
Choose a leaf, a single leaf; lime, oak, chestnut, elm retrieve a memory; first kiss, touch, smile relive a ritual; birth, youth, death imagine fire, storm, lightning, water over stone count the passing moments in 3, 5, 7, 9 time