Welcome! Explore My Creations & Discover Your Favourites.
This is the central home for all of my creative work. Whether you are a long-time reader or visiting for the first time, I invite you to dive in and explore.
🧭 How to Navigate the Site
Latest Postings: Tap on the links in the written menus below to search my writing. To dive straight into my most recent pieces three will show on my front page. To browse by Category: Click the Menu drop down at the bottom of the page. Simply choose a category that sparks your interest and see what you discover.
✒️ The Poetry: From Craft to Soul
My writing journey spans over a decade, and you will find an eclectic mix of styles reflecting that growth.
The Evolution of Style: Explore everything from my early, structured days—where my poetry was more didactic and traditionally rhymed—through to my contemporary work, which leans toward free verse while still experimenting with classical forms.
Themes & Texture: I have a deep love for psychological poetry, vivid imagery, and the natural music of language. My hope is that you find lines within these pages that truly speak to your own experiences.
The Craft Behind the Words: Having dedicated several years to studying the mechanics of writing, I also share numerous craft-based articles. If you are a fellow writer or a curious reader, these insights into the “how” and “why” of poetry are for you.
📚 Coming Soon: Sneak Peeks & Previews
I am currently in the exciting throes of producing two new books of poetry that take an intimate look at psychology and the self.As these collections come together, I will be sharing exclusive snippets right here on the blog. Keep a close eye out for these previews I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts, reactions, and feedback as the project evolves.
Enjoy your time exploring, and thank you for reading!
Below see my Three Latest Posts.
- The changing face of a poem.
“A decade can quietly reshape the syntax of our lives. Recently, I looked back at a poem I wrote in 2016 and felt the urge to revisit it—not just to polish the words, but to see how ten years of living might soften the edges. Here is where I began.”
2016: The Blueprint
Ode to my life.
I cope with my life in my own tried and tested ways
Spreading out my love and keeping fears at bay.
I know that I have a boundless store of love to give
So no need to horde it, I can let it live.
I am less certain about receiving love
Or sharing other parts of me – some of me is bluff.My dreams are horded close and rarely shared
Illusions, I try to spot then change or kill
But some exist against my will.My tolerance is kept in a box
I try my best to keep it unlocked.Diplomacy is sometimes in short supply
My bag of diplomacy often seems to run dry.
Irreverence and humour come from a well
I drink from it regularly I am under its spell.
My inhibitions pop into my mind
Stay with me during the daily grind.I cope with my life in tried and tested ways
Trying to change some of my excessive forays.
During it all I remain unique
The pluses and minuses of this priceless antique
Trying to live, love and be fulfilled.
Learning from life I am maybe becoming more skilled!2026 The expansion
“Ten years later, the rhythm changes. The boxes open. Leaning into the natural music of the words—the euphonics—this is where that same life stands today.”
Ode to My Present Self (Euphonic Version)
I carry my life in ways long learned
slow, steady rhythms shaped by years,
soft habits stitched through quiet mornings.
I let my love spill lightly now,
no longer locked or kept in corners.
It breathes, it blooms,
it moves where it is needed.
Receiving love still stirs a tremor
I open, then pause,
my breath held in the half‑lit space.
Some parts of me bluff their bravery,
but I cradle them gently,
letting their small truths rise.
My dreams stay near,
not hoarded tight,
but humming low like lanterns
waiting for the right wind.
Illusions flicker
I catch them quicker,
their thin light fading
as I name them.
My tolerance rests in its familiar box;
the latch lifts easier now,
though it clicks on colder days.
Diplomacy deepens in me
the dry bag fills again
with quiet, calm,
and the long breath of restraint.
Irreverence and humour
still well up warm
I drink from that deep spring,
its ripple keeping me light
when the world grows heavy.
My old inhibitions drift in and out,
no longer clinging
to the grind of daily hours.
They come, they nod,
they loosen,
and I let them go.
I live my life in ways reshaped
ways refined,
ways released,
ways reclaimed.
I change what strains me,
and forgive what stays.Through it all,
I remain wholly myself —
the bright and the broken,
the polish and the crack,
the living antique
still learning,
still loving,
still becoming,
still skilled
in the slow art of being human.
Over to You
Have you a poem from yesteryear that could be repurposed and given a new slant? Care to share in the comments?
- The Invisible Musician:Tuning the Mouth of a Poem.
The Invisible Musician: Tuning the Mouth of a Poem
The Mouth as Instrument
Imagine two poets standing before the same winter field. Both want to describe a freezing wind dragging itself across ice‑stiffened ground. One writes:
The cold wind blew over the empty fields. The meaning is clear. The image is accurate. But the line lives entirely in the intellect; the reader processes it as information, not sensation. The second poet tunes the line:
A bitter freezing frost cuts across the crisp, cracked dirt. Suddenly the mouth is enlisted. The biting plosives — t, k — and the brittle consonant clusters — cr, fr — force the tongue to snap and the breath to tighten. The reader doesn’t just understand winter; they physically experience it.
Poets often labour over imagery and metaphor, yet overlook the fact that a poem’s sonic texture delivers its emotional payload long before the mind interprets meaning. Every word carries a mouth‑feel, a breath requirement, a muscular demand. When you write a poem, you are not merely painting with language — you are composing for the human vocal tract.
Subvocalization:
The Reader’s Secret Participation
Even in silence, the reader’s body responds. As they move through your poem, their brain triggers micro‑movements in the tongue, lips, and vocal cords. They taste your lines internally. If your sonic landscape is accidental, the emotional resonance will be accidental too. A poem is not just read. It is performed inside the reader’s body.
The Anatomy of Breath
When a reader enters a poem, they surrender their breathing pattern to the page. Every comma, every line break, and — most importantly — every consonant cluster dictates when they inhale, when they hold, and how much resistance the mouth encounters. For craft purposes, it is useful to divide the alphabet not by grammar, but by how each sound manipulates air.
Consonants: The Architecture of Friction and Flow
The Speed Brakes: Plosives and Friction
Plosives — b, p, t, d, k, g — block the airway completely before releasing it in a tiny explosion. Stack them, and the reader’s tongue must work hard: The dark rock cracked. The mouth cannot rush this line. Each word demands a physical stop. The sonic friction mirrors the hard, fractured nature of the stone itself.
The Open Highway: Liquids and Nasals
Liquids (l, r) and nasals (m, n) allow air to flow without collision. They create spaciousness, fluidity, and emotional softness: The river runs over lonely stones.
The breath glides. The pulse slows. The line lengthens into a gentle, continuous exhale.
Consonant Groups and Their Effects
| Group | Physical Action | Psychological Effect
| Plosives | Air is blocked, then burst open | Urgency, violence, fracture, structure |
| Liquids & Nasals | Air flows freely | Longing, mourning, fluid motion, timelessness |
| Sibilants & Fricatives | Air squeezed through a narrow opening | Secrecy, suspense, wind, decay, whisper |
Consonants provide the bones and muscle of a poem — its rhythm, its resistance, its physical labour.
Vowels: The Resonance Chamber
If consonants control stopping and starting, vowels control resonance. Each vowel carries a natural pitch determined by the shape of the mouth and the openness of the throat. By arranging vowels intentionally, you can create emotional movement — ascent, descent, tension, release — entirely through sound.
High, Tight Vowels: The Attic of the Mouth
Vowels like ee (gleam), i (glint), and short e (speck) are formed at the front of the mouth. The tongue rises; the lips narrow; the acoustic chamber tightens. These sounds evoke: Brightness or crystalline sharpness Anxiety, tension, containment Smallness or precision The thin ice glints in the bitter wind.
The pitch feels cold, tight, and brittle.
Low, Open Vowels: The Cellar of the Chest
Vowels like oo (gloom), open o (bone), and ah (dark) require the tongue to drop and the throat to open. The sound resonates deeper, using the full chamber of the mouth and chest. These evoke: Heaviness, shadow, solemnityVastness or echoing spaceGrief, longing, timeThe old stone tolls alone in the dark.
The low pitch creates weight and sombre finality.
The Vowel Staircase: Sonic Gradation
The true magic emerges when vowels are arranged to create movement — a sonic staircase.
Ascending (High → Higher) Creates tension, rising energy, sharpness, or a sense of vanishing into light.
Descending (High → Low)Creates gravity, emotional descent, or the sensation of entering deep water.
Consider:A thin bell tolls.
Thin — high,
tight bell — lower, broader
tolls — deep, resonant
The mouth opens step by step, physically enacting the poem’s emotional fall.
Converging Lives. Sounds, Silence and Imagery 