Graham Kershaw

States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘The Vicar & the Gypsy’ by Graham Kershaw

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series One • 22 February 2016

Riding back from Heathrow, after Rome,everything felt dark, sad, dirty, grim.Only on the train did the old redemption come:soft green fields, open loose-leafed canopies,water tipped from shivering layers of leaf,through clouds of shadow; all those rich depthsunder bridges, in the ditches, between one hedgeand another; deep pools of shadow, piercedby stars of wet light; mysteries gathering,flooding ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘The Children of Aleppo’ by Graham Kershaw

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series One • 22 February 2016

This morning I read of the nightwell,filling mysteriously in our sleep,disappearing by day, and it broughtto mind the gifts of Christmas, of starlight,the open dark eyes of the children of Aleppoon television the night before. I dreamt of a family escaping through pines,over the crest of a forest, young and oldstruggling down to the shore of a great cold lake,their only hope of escape; no boat wa ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘The Heywood Spire’ by Graham Kershaw

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series One • 22 February 2016

Below Howarth Cross, tussocky fieldsstill wait for dead builders; 'Pick your plot now.'Mice dart away through clover and thistlesdodging oil drums, chip wrappers, surprisedby the impossible song of lost looms.Under Cobbled Bridge, off Belfield Lanethe stones erode along their grain, as lain.On the underside, immortalised, 'Kipper Lips'and 'Tina too much too young.' Past cyclists, fisherman and fe ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘Perenjori Morning’ by Graham Kershaw

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series One • 22 February 2016

Such a hollowness grows beneath ussuch an undermining,such a heavy, unwelcome silencethat we can no longer touchthis happy or unhappy life,this grass, these children, this field of light,fly as we might each fortnightthe surfaces lose value– window, fence, city, street –as we become beasts, turned inside outunder the fluorescent pool table light,all our works futiletantrums and bullying,blood ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | from ‘Emails to Manila’ by Graham Kershaw

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series One • 22 February 2016

IV Bottle-green air,red gravel, bark and branch,filigrees of hazel,blanketing roar of ocean,inlet glints of stone.Depths of quiet sounded outin ducks' satellite pings.There's no ribbon to tie these things neatly in train,no music to make it sound okay;just me awake, reading your emailas cockatoos swing and chimehigh in karri's campanile. Wherever we are,whatever the trees and air,there's a time ... (read more)