It's Valentine's Day - in case you missed it...

The last time I was in Paris it was around about this time of year and everywhere you went in the main drags (you can't really call a Parisien boulevard a drag, Michael) there were large posters everywhere with poems on them.

In the spirit of this offering I thought I would include a poem in my blog today. I don't normally like to put poems here, in case they get stolen - like, who would want to but you never know -however this one has already been published.

I was commissioned by Margaret Thomson Davis to write a series of poems for her novel Red Alert from the point of view of a young woman who was going to art school. Anyway, the poor lass had a hard time...but did it all turn out well? Long enough for her to fall in love, but after that...I ain't saying.

Here's one of the poems in the series I came up with for Margaret...

Inside She’s Dancing

Every step she takes this morning

lands on a cushion of air.

All they did last night was kiss

and today he flavours everything

her mind touches.



His voice sounds in the rumble

of a passing car. The valerian blue

of his eyes watches over her

reflected in every window

from here to there.



A boy with short, brown hair

gelled to spikes, holds his mother’s hand

while crossing the road. She sees him

in the way the boy’s eyes tug at his mum,

checking she is still there.

The boy gives a little kick with each step

as if the promise of a future

nips at his heels.



An old man at the bus stop, round

like Santa. Him in fifty years. Cheeks

bunched in a grin, wearing an apple blush

like him last night when he brushed

her right breast with his arm.



Caught herself smiling at the old man,

wanting to know

how they carry the years,

yet doesn’t want to spoil the dance

of every blood cell through the chambers of her heart,

like millions of tiny breeze-blown flowers.