John wakes up in Iceland
Writing that the people are smiling at him
And that it’s Christmas.
He says the ground is a sheet of ice
And there isn’t a tree in sight;
That the sky is wild with stars
And it’s thirteen degrees below.
He says the sun rises at eleven, in the south,
Lolls on its horizon-bed of pink and red,
And in three hours falls back again, exhausted.
The long twilight glows.
A slow curtain of cold fire swings
Across the harbour ice.
John dances in his new boots
The waltz of the Aurora Borealis.
He kneels at the feet of the North Atlantic,
Humming to himself and quoting
Prophets of the Sixties, reaching
For the deep globe of heaven as if to hold
Some exotic potted plant between his hands.
John wakes up in Iceland
Writing that the people are smiling at him
And that it’s Christmas.
Jan 21
Jan 21, 2026 at 4:32 PM UTC
Sunday morning. Sky
the colour it does best. I sprawl
here in my easy leather chair,
ankles crossed on its matching
footstool, scrawling this. A tiny
buzz that for once is not my ears:
a bee or wasp my weak eyes can’t
locate; otherwise quiet in this old
house at the end of a long dirt track
bordered by wind-bent trees,
our personal Appian Way
that lacks only crucified rebels,
a world and worlds away
from other versions of isolation,
socially distanced, and glad to be.
Jan 12
Jan 12, 2026 at 3:03 PM UTC
Great stone dragons,
Teeth like knives, wild eyes,
Guard the steps.
Thin women in black,
Solemn as mourners,
Watch us from the gates.
A guide in a tall hat
Welcomes us, bows low,
Palms against the sky.
We’ve travelled far
By boat and rail to reach this place,
This mysterious jadegreen land;
Yet even here, where many-headed gods
Once had such silent authority,
And even today the lizard Antiquity
Slithers and crawls,
The McDonald’s on the corner
Is crowded with Americans.
Jan 12
Jan 12, 2026 at 2:54 PM UTC