New for Autumn 2026: Lifelines, Migraine...

Lifelines

I remember when I could still see

The lifelines in my unhardened hands.

Now they’re lost in a maze of wrinkles.

Is it the tools I have gripped, trying 

To tend the worn and broken?

The scribbling of a thousand pencils

As I pursue that elusive masterpiece?

The weary worrying at keyboards?

Is it snowdrops planted, roses pruned,

Compost shifted and spread?

Guys who nurture gardens

Can’t be all bad, surely?

I hope some of it is fingers pressed to strings, 

Stirring sweet chords to life… I hope

Little of it is fists formed for fear or fight.

But at my best I wish this net of wrinkles,

Drawn through the trickling stream of diminishing days,

Holds in its mesh caresses, tears wiped,

Comfort for the lost and lonely,

Even, sometimes, the hungry fed?

My kids embraced and knowing they are loved…

Then I could feel that, in the slow

Withering away of my palms, they might

At least have grasped something.

Migraine

A diamond rattler coils around my sight

A rainbow chainsaw rasping through my vision

A neon scimitar hacks at the light

A deadly burst of glaring radiation.

Exploding blue stars fill the firmament

Hurtling towards a black hole and extinction

A burst of static fogs each instrument

A thousand needles stab at all distinction.

A dazzling rose that bears a thousand thorns

A sinking spiral swirling round a drain

A noble novel into tatters torn

A maw of nothing swallowing my brain.

A darkened room until it slinks away

To hone its claws and strike another day.