"this is sixth form poetry, not Keats or Yeats"
Across the vibrant reefs you snake and crawl, In search of shelter from an unseen threat; The shadows write their names in salty scrawl, Your body intertwined in blind duet. You see the world without a lens or eye, As veiled photoreceptors help you scry; Your skin a dense and tangled web of sight, … Read more
Besides the tranquil sea and sun-bleached sand, The turtles find a place to make their nest; Probing the rolling crescents of the land, To find a place where incubation’s best. Now buried like a golf ball in a dune, The eggs begin to undergo great change; To their surroundings they must now attune, With gender … Read more
We rip apart the Earth on which we stand, Try tame the wild for all that we have planned; Now caught up in our thoughts and ‘expertise,’ Expose ourselves to buried-deep disease. The virus is unmindful of our scheme, And flows between the species like a stream; We cut away the forest from the … Read more
Your pearly whites gleam in the midday sun, But soon your eyes will close and you will sleep; There will be no dreams behind your eyelids, Only the cool steel of the artist’s knife. A coffee-stained sheet of yellow paper In a forgotten filing cabinet Tells us that you are enjoying life out In Queen … Read more
The oceans are awash with our debris, As plastics from our lives flow down the drain And travel down hewn channels to the sea, Where laced with man-made poisons they remain. Through plankton they leach into the food chain, As fish consume this fouled and tainted meal; The plastics then cross over to their brain, … Read more
You prowl and sniff the air around your pack, With outsized ears you wear just like a crown Atop a cloak of matted, mottled brown; The silence summons heckles on your back. You take the centre stage for your attack, And outline plans to raid the nearest town; You prowl and sniff the air … Read more
Balanced on a rock Orange sneezeweed in your mouth; You drop in the heat. This is a Haiku, inspired by recent research which has found climate change responsible for the local extinction of the American pika from California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. The American pika is a small mammal adapted to high altitudes and cold temperatures, … Read more
Dappled silhouettes amongst the trees – A lost memory of verdant lands. Your fragmented impressions Have disappeared from view; All that remains is An empty shell Which one day Too will Fade. This is a nonet, inspired by recent research that has succeeded in comparing the movement and space use of jaguars across five different … Read more
These parasitic insect pests, Crave sanctuary that is sanguine; As most unwelcome, picky guests, They flee the hues of gold and green. Lilac and violet are painted, Daughters become well acquainted; Whilst sons search for others in red, To blacken the sheets on our bed. This is a Rispetto, based on recent … Read more
There once were some pigs north of Java, Whose warts needed a balaclava. Whilst a new study found, That their numbers were down; Endangered without a palaver. This is a Limerick, based on recent research done by scientists at the VHL University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, who carried out the first … Read more