Commission Over

All done. 80,000 words delivered. There will be an event in Wigtown during the Bookfest in October, hopefully a book launch and then you can buy your own copy! Whoooopeeee

Afterword

I take off my specs

and the sea breaks to pieces

of brilliant glass,

each an electric pulse,

each a prism for the sun.

Cracking open a can of Estrella,

I take up my pen like Byron in Sintra,

or Ovid in Constanta, 

happy with the heat, the fish oil,

and the homage of innumerable fans

back home in the sleet.

Why do I think of the Solway then,

that miserable excuse for a sea,

with its rocks nudging out of the silt

like knees in a bath?

Stone upon stone I ignite a light

of a different sort, in memory,

pale on the gorse, hot in the heart.