A  poem from The Lost Box of Eyes:

 

 

a philosophical provocation

this tree is both an assertion and a dialogue

it is ambiguous and playfully sets out in branches

it is rooting too slowly to appreciate in inches

it is not just itself but also lichens and mosses

aggregate on its surfaces, and the spine of trunk

is a book of record in a way, and the flat leaf

a translator of light and air and water, a sheathe

of cares where a slaughter of aphids turn gunk

and tear into a million chews, or that tree frogs

may choose to hide beneath and snooze, or foxes

paw at when they parachute loose, and so this

is an interpretation, and that is all it is, a miss

heard call, a faint echo, an accumulation of

words sighing like leaves on a tree, or a stove

that is ready to cook the meal that's inside it.

This door is blind shut and we don't know it's lit.

 

 

This poem won a prize in The Arvon International Poetry Prize, and it was published in Poetry Review.

Poem from the anthology of Cumbria poetry This Place I Know

 There is an excellent exhibition of Sheila Fell landscapes and portraits at Tullie House until mid March 2025. It reminded me of this poem I wrote. 

 

unable to see the Sheila Fell landscapes.

 

 

Air dances the wings of Cherry leaves

so that green shakes about the white frowsy hair pinked in the midst

of upraised arms shaking like a child’s upbraided for walking

out onto a busy street

though it is restrained by an iron cage fitted about it and into the concrete

paving slabs diminishing what might be subtle yearnings

 

 

She has a patch, rather a coarse plaster, at her throat where

a piercing with a kind of stone is set in a wound

 

 

painfully healing. Her hair

that was wound up in a soft grey woollen towel is let down

so that what were flowers split apart and spill

about the slender bole out to the border-edges of the paving

 

 

where wall break stones tumble the corner of my eye

caught by the sleek grey of a wild cat turning away

 

Copywrite Alan John Stubbs

Published in THIS PLACE I KNOW, a new anthology of Cumbria Poetry, by Handstand Press,

and in the collection tomorrow is the tugboat of today by The Onslaught Press.

 

 

 

lost box of eyes collection available on Internet Archive

Free read lost box of eyes.

 

I have been told that anyone interested in my poetry can find my first collection the lost box of eyes in the 'internet archive' and borrow it to read free of charge.

I am delighted with this and have added a link to the archive copy below.

 

Lost Box of Eyes  

enjoy