I have always loved writing poetry - a poem I wrote as a child has been included in a Macmillan Christmas anthology, and I published poems before I started writing stories.  My poems have appeared in anthologies for publishers including Bloomsbury, Candlestick Press, Macmillan, Scholastic, Collins Children's Books, Oxford University Press, Otter-Barry Books and A&C Black. My poem A Vain Polar Bear has just been published in Brian Moses' anthology The Best Ever Book of Funny Poems (Macmillan 2021).

I have also written poems for Pearson educational publishers.

My mini eBooks One Week of Christmas Poems, One Week of Dinosaur Poems, One week of Nature Poems, One Week of Space Poems,  One Week of Football Poems, One Week of Spooky Poems, One Week of Seaside Poems, One Week of Pirate Poems and One Week of Puzzle Poems are available on Amazon Kindle.  The first six books in the series are also gathered together in the One Week of Poems Omnibus.

Here are a couple of poems. I'll change them every now and then so come back to see what's new.

THE SEVEN AGES OF A LEAF

First the bud, close hugged,
Curled against the cold,
Waiting for sun’s signal.
 
Then the newborn leaf,
Wrinkled, pale and fragile,
Freshly unfurling.
 
Then the growing leaf,
Full-veined, drinking deep,
Stretching, swelling, reaching.
 
Then the sun-baked leaf,
Spread wide, feeding upon light,
Working to store food for seed-making.
 
Then the celebration,
Garlanded in red and gold,
Richly signalling a job well done.
 
Sixth, the fading leaf,
Withered and wrinkled,
Drifting down towards the waiting earth.
 
And then the seventh age,
Weakened and worm-eaten,
Journeying through the earth and roots and shoots
 
To reach the bud, close hugged,
Curled against the cold,
Waiting for sun’s signal.

DOES A CATERPILLAR DREAM?

As a caterpillar crunches
All those lovely leafy lunches,
Does it raise its little eyes
To the butterfly-filled skies?
Does it watch them as they dance?
Does it wish for just one chance
To escape its leafy place,
And fly free in light and space?
As it chews and chews and chews,
Does it long for different views?
An escape from endless green?
 
Does a caterpillar dream?
 
As a butterfly is drinking
Golden nectar, is it thinking
Of lost days of steady munching
And companionable crunching?
As it flits through sunny skies,
Do faint memories arise
Of the crawl from leaf to leaf
In the shady world beneath?
Of a time when it was green,
Trying hard not to be seen,
Long before this rainbow splendour?
 
Does a butterfly remember?