DJ IN PRINT!

I'm delighted to announce that Phoenicia Publishing of Montreal are to publish a book of my poems later this year. It will be called Ancient Lights and will feature some 65 poems. As you can see from the Phoenicia website, production values are very high, both in terms of the choice of material and the design and making of the books. I feel privileged to have had a manuscript accepted by Phoenicia. A very happy haven after so long!

When the practicalities are sorted out - cover design, publication date, marketing details and the like - I'll post again. However, whilst not short on ego and hubris, I've always found the bells and whistles approach to self-publicising difficult to manage. (Why become a bass player when everyone else wants to be a lead guitarist?) So I'll apologise in advance for the popping up in unexpected places and the subsequent sleeve-tugging that will go on around publication time.

:::

Here's an old poem that I wrote way back and have just re-discovered and re-jigged.



TELESCOPE

Space-crazy, we bought a telescope
and hugged it home.
Soon it was nosy,
probing a foam
of clouds, a splash of birds,
a watercolour sun.

That night we danced attendance
on the stars,
waited by the window
as the fading scars
of a bloody sunset
healed away.

We scoured the thicket darkness
of the sky,
breath on a tether.
Our elastic eye
scrutinised but
just found holes.

Then we caught a corner
of the moon.
Too bold and brazen,
a monochrome cartoon
for kids and madmen.
We withdrew, appalled.

Day broke clear, and, cautious,
set to run,
we scanned the heavens.
Buttery sun
clogged the treeline, gold
in sulphur blue.

Space-shy, we tipped the telescope,
swept a new prospect –
suburban hedges, geometric lawns.
Pioneers, we cross-checked
the garden constellations
with the galaxy next door.