Just one big issue left to sell

And draped in his red uniform

He timidly walks into this East London restaurant

Eastern promises of western life

Have brought him here.

Promises not for him, but for the son of his wife.


Head bowed and hand to heart

He tells of his experience:

Two years selling big issue

Two years in London

No passport but a laminated card showing his identity.

No kitchen experience but a very good dish washer at home.


I hear the front of house staff discuss him with the head chef

Sun or snow, they say, he’s out there selling.

He assures the chef he never misses a day, always hard working.


11am tomorrow. Don’t be late.


As he packs up his red uniform and puts his last big issue under his arm,

He leaves with a beaming smile.

This eastern man has found his right step

and turns left, west on exmouth market.

Pristine granite stone

lines Prague’s streets.



Fragments of stone sectioned

out to carry a communist



leader on visit.

Amongst the stone are martyrs,



bakers, women, children.

Fragmented stone, chipped



and repurposed pieces of grave.

Granite graves no longer visited.



Individual identity lost to many regimes.

A turbulent history



I intend to join.

Three pronged leaves stain the footpath.

Yesterday’s rain indents their tridents

Around Shoreditch. Swept away by council,

Amusingly, at the start of autumn.



In October, when morning’s golden sun

Lies shadows on each building you pass,

This building - a holy one - has front steps

That bed the bedless.



In October, the tattooed pavement

On Pittfield Street illuminates with lives

Past and present. Spring’s leaves have now fallen

And left these trident swords to battle winter.

The world is too much with us; the gloom

Reported on bbc of record showers,

Earthquakes following hurricanes; Our

Society points to running taps, loom

Through darkness under light of moon:

How Proteus would correct these efforts,

But he eludes and so their

Animals are caught, boon

For a Big Mac, a chicken curry

Or rack of ribs torn

Flesh from a bone that, saved, would breathe

Life back into a still born

World; reports continue and impending fear

Has not aroused the old man or even Triton’s wreathèd horn.

Cherry blossom pinks encircle a park,
Cordoned off by stretched police ribbon
Surrounding its inner heart.
Inside lies a man. Cherry blossom pinks run from his body.

Springtime has brought record temperatures
And Londoners sit out, filling the beer garden
that overflows into the adjacent park.
The sun’s heat can be blinding.

Later they wrap the tape back up.
Another stabbing.
Open and shut.

The sun sets and the beer garden empties.
Tomorrow, the park will fill again.
The cherry blossom’s pink as temporary as our memories.

"Fate may not hold that life in as high a regard, and may dispose of it at will."
- Selected Civil War Letters of Edwine Willow



Gathering in a blessed hall

Segmented by gender.

Lines of ancestors, resting

alongside a new neighbour.



Yesterday, rain poured

As if to mourn

What the evening sky would bring

As it opened up and wept.



Today’s sun won’t relent.

A still March day.



China teacups and saucers -

65 years old - a wedding present

Turned prop for visiting mourners.

Comforting a widow.

Long Life



Tuna bridge rolls

salmon bagels

whiskey bottles.



The evening’s sky

Awash with stars

As bright as we had seen them

London’s pollution falling silent too

In respect.

As the last of the living die

Important now, than ever, to remember their story

To head their warning.

When tomorrow veers its head



And we mistake a put down

To a popularised form of politic

Let’s not forget their warning.

Let’s not forget mankind’s ability

To watch idly by - even contribute -

To what the victors later call atrocities

Only when they see victory



So let’s not let victory be the hand

That shows today’s atrocities.

Don’t be idle.

See, speak, hear - let evil wash over you

So that you see it for what it’s worth.



Head the warnings of the last of the living

Before they die.