Gerald Parker

There's not much to tell. I read a lot of poetry and I read my own poetry regularly. I hope other people read it and derive as much pleasure out of it as I do. My output is small, about 110 poems as I am only an occasional poet. Most of my poems are based on my own experiences. About thirty have been published in UK poetry magazines and anthologies. When I am not reading, I enjoy theatre, cinema, classical music, jazz, travel and walking my dogs with my wife.


Seamus Heaney The Railway Children

When we climbed the slopes of the cutting
We were eye-level with the white cups
Of the telegraph poles and the sizzling wires.

Like lovely freehand they curved for miles
East and miles west beyond us, sagging
Under their burden of swallows.

We were small and thought we knew nothing
Worth knowing. We thought words travelled the wires
In the shiny pouches of raindrops,

Each one seeded full with the light
Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves
So infinitesimally scaled

We could stream through the eye of a needle.