Alone and together

For my first blog of 2019 let me first wish all followers and readers all the very best wishes for a happy and healthy year.

We are all aware that we live in uncertain times – for the planet and ourselves.  I also know many people who are facing personal difficulties and tragedies. May you all find some peace.

The poem below is the first one in my second poetry collection, Breakfast in Bed, which will be published later in the year by Indigo Dreams Publishing.

I was delighted when I heard in October from the lovely people at Indigo that they wanted to publish my work. They are a great publisher, and I have a number of poetry friends who are already published by them, some of them I first met on Jo Bell’s 52 writing project in 2014 (Write a poem a week for a year). Check out the Indigo Dreams shop here: https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/buy-4-get-1-more/4594495985

I am also pleased to say that several of my poetry colleagues in west Wales will be publishing collections in 2019 too. At least three others from the workshopping  group PENfro Poets (which grew out of the PENfro Book Festival nearly seven years ago) will have new collections out this year. I’ll post about them when their books arrive.

I am grateful to the fabulous website Algebra of Owls -- https://algebraofowls.com/poetry/

 --  for publishing this poem back in November. This is the first poem in my forthcoming collection:

Alone and together

A city that snares

slow rhythms

(Federico Garcia Lorca)

A river flows through

afternoon’s slow heat,

Lorca’s pace

                (together and alone

                juntos y solo)

babble at café tables

rises and drops into shadow

by the waterside

sun falls through trees,

the flicker of fresh leaves

in green spring

                (solo y juntos

                alone and together)

wine is red, time is yellow

the rhythm of the river is ours

for this hour adrift