touch-me-not
this flower
doesn’t belong
on the canal
hiding
in an airless tunnel
where no-one goes
before dark
rooted
to a thin layer
of dirt
head bowed
butter bloom
an open mouth
that faint smell
of sherbet
when someone
passes
it …
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Category Archives: Poems
Darklight
My cell had no window, no light bulb. Hallucinations:
tortured faces; a gargoyle on my chest sipping
my lungs through a straw. With a nail from my boot
I scratched help in the dirt ten thousand times – until
it …
Stubborn Cow
Your standoff with the boundary fence continues.
You lean your weight into it. Not your full weight
or you might topple. Just a lumbering
steady pressure. You pull back when the jolts of pain
become too much – your bullwhip …
Brontë Writer in Residence
Ian has been appointed Writer in Residence at the Brontë Parsonage Museum for 2023/24.…
Poetry Prize
Ian’s second collection, Tormentil, due from Nine Arches Press in September 2023, has won a Royal Society of Literature ‘Literature Matters’ Award while in progress.…
