Poetry

Love & Other Diseases, Allan Gaw’s debut poetry collection, was launched by Seahorse Publications on July 10, 2023.  The book has been hailed as ‘a triumph, pushing the boundaries of form and content all the way out’ (Julie McNeill), and its author has been described as ‘a fresh voice in contemporary verse exploring with crafted perception and emotion the connections between self and the things of the world around him’ (Jim Mackintosh).

The collection of 50 poems range from subtle poems of love and loss through to eerie personifications of the diseases that have ravaged humankind.

Copies are available from the publisher http://www.seahorsepublications.com with free P&P for UK addresses. 

Three sample poems from the book:

NIGHTSONG

The heavy sea is sighing in the night

     hushing me to sleep

          with weary waves of white noise

                  washing on a shingle

                       shore.

There was a time when I had the rhythm

     of your sleeping breath

            to comfort me in the dark, but now

                   you rest your head on another

                          pillow.

The sea will never leave me though — it

      has made no promises to stay, nor

           idly talks of always as if the meaning

                     of eternity might be known

                           to such as us.

Every night since time began, that tide has

       beat its breath upon this shore and

            countless eons more will hear its heave

                   hasten home and harness on

                           the breeze.

But the waves know better than to talk of forever.

         Yet still they take their time

                   to shiver the silence

                  and soothe me in

the night.

CLOTH

Give me cloth.

Tie your threads together, under, through and over.

Be deft.

Weave me new and comfort me with the warmth of wool.

Bring me dreams.

Spin your hopes together and draw them out as one.

Be true.

Craft the warp, the weft, stitch by stitch on tomorrow’s loom.

Cut me free.

Sew your twist and silken twine, careful not to catch.

Be kind.

Dash the shuttle, pull the cord and turn the wheel for good.

Wrap me tight.

Thread your needles and draw them long to make short work.

Be soft.

Swathe my life, my swaddling to my shroud, with all your love.

SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME CORONAVIRUS 2

I am a thing of beauty. Symmetry, design. Even if I had no purpose, you would still find me fascinating. A shimmering glitterball, arrayed with a crown of thorns. Almost ecclesiastical. Certainly majestic despite my size. You place too much store in scale though. Everything smaller than you is somehow unimportant. You thought me insignificant. Well, I am small, by your standards. Very small. But I think you have a little more respect for me now than perhaps you had before. You see, I am not merely ornamental. I have function, as well as form. I come in numbers you cannot hope to count. I come as an army. And I come with teeth. There was so much you could have done. And so little that you chose to do. Perhaps next time you’ll be bettered prepared. But I doubt it. I am still as beautiful as I always was, and I expect I’ll dazzle you all again. You see that is my purpose. My beauty. In all its perpetuity. I will long outlive you, but whatever comes next will doubtless serve as another useful host. Perhaps even a better one than you. I adapt. I shift. I infect. I kill and I move on to the next. Your masks and machines. Your hand rubs and needles. So sweet, but don’t you know that in the end I always win. So, let’s not say goodbye. Just farewell, until the next time.