Saturday 24 February 2018

'Fiona'

Listening to one of the black cab rapist's first victims talk on radio about her ordeal and then reading about the latest court case, when the woman we call 'Fiona' came face to face with her attacker at a Judicial Review hearing, prompted this poem.


‘Fiona’

I saw you in court
tried to imagine how you may be feeling
putting yourself out there
a victim

and then he turned up
a few yards away
you weren’t expecting that

how would that feel?

‘He’s been in my head for 15 years,’  you said
and there he is again
in front of you

he’s behind glass
but there was glass between you before
in that cab

they said you were not
a credible witness
‘A black cab driver
just wouldn’t do that.’

But he did
and you have lived with him in your head
for 15 years

believing that you let all the others down
those hundreds
who went through that
after you

because someone decided
you were not believable


This poem was first published here: http://www.poetry24.co.uk/
 


BBC Radio 4 Today programme clip: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05xcm63



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/07/john-worboys-pictured-arriving-high-court-judge-orders-attend/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/21/john-worboyspolice-failed-victims-black-cab-rapist-supreme-court/

Friday 23 February 2018

Sevilla

I was pleased to have this poem published along with two others in the 'Love & Music' edition of The Writers' Cafe website on February 14th this year. I started writing it when were by the Rio Guadalquivir in Sevilla in October 2015. On the day it was published by The Writers' Cafe we were back there!


Sevilla
(The labyrinths
formed by time
dissolve
from ‘And After’, Federico GarcĂ­a Lorca)

Sun on the river
lovers sit on the wall

                (boats row by, turn
                and go back again)

waves slap on the wall
lovers laugh together

                (across the river the cafes
                are opening)
 
songs in the air
lovers kiss on the strand

moon on the river
lovers embrace under the bridge

                (across the river the cafes
                are closing)

boys play guitars under trees
lovers dance beneath stars


 

First published:  https://thewriterscafemagazine.wordpress.com/2018/02/13/the-writers-cafe-magazine-issue-5-love-music/