John Rickell Poems

The curlew no more
stalks the estuary
winter is gone.
I hear but one cuckoo
...

It was 1840 and the potatoes failed,
The English printed postage stamps
While bison roamed the prairies.
We couldn't ‘fford the boat fare
...

Calm and still,
no turmoil in the air
the same as last we met,
I hear the gentle waves
...

Spring dissolves winter's gloom
distilling opening buds drop
their scales now snow is gone,
chestnut leaves carried home
...

Lonely on a crab tree top
speckled breast and grey-blue head,
against the melting snow.
Have you lost your way....?
...

How does he do it?
His brain no more than finger nail
Singing a scale of notes I cannot sing
Nor can forget.What does he say? It seems he knows
...

If I could sculpt my love,
search for finest porphry,
I would spend my life and carve
fit for Rome or Athens to rival
...

The rail track once to carry
coal from Yorkshire fields
redundant; lorries now and diesel.
A country walk and straight.
...

The Shropshire lane makes its uncertain way
Passed the old school house at Pennerley
Untaught for many a year,
The children now with siblings of their own.
...

She sat beneath the parasol
white wine to her mouth.
How I envied the goblet
could feel the warmth of woman's lips
...