The Poetry of Rob Radcliffe

This is from January 1997. A poem about walking in the dark, colliding with the dawn…
Darkest Before Dawn
Movement, just there, branch
Like a windscreen wiper
Over moon. Ineffective.
Then stillness till the screech
Of car beyond
Reminds me of houses
And all that goes with them.
Pennines, slumbering jurassics,
Backdrop to the carnival
Of streetlights
Pitched along
The midway of the valley.
If only I […]

I wrote this about a girl I once knew. She was agoraphobic. I tried to imagine what it was like and this poem was the result! An illustrated version of this poem first appeared in FLUX magazine, an arts and culture magazine I think is still going and on sale in the newsagents […]

It’s the middle of the night, and I remember during long periods when I was unemployed and frustrated, I would emulate Marcel Proust by maintaining a nocturnal existence. I’ve always been of a nocturnal bent, really - I love the interesting pause in the world when everyone else (at least locally!) is asleep, and […]

I deliberately didn’t post anything on Valentine’s Day. It would have been far too distasteful to dig out a love poem and post it just because a particular day demanded it. Last post was a simple love poem, this one is about something more specific. Just one of those nights with an […]

A simple little poem, probably best consigned to the poetic dustbin, but since it’s 12 months before it would be appropriate to publish it again, I thought I might as well include this very short old poem from my student days (we’re talking about February 1990 here!). I am still working up to actually starting […]

I wrote this poem when I was supposed to be working. As the title suggests, I was in an office at the time. It’s quite a sad and desperate piece, but then the futility of humdrum daily life can often be quite sad and desperate. I’ve been very busy lately running the […]

I’m starting with some old stuff. This one’s about thinking and writing, and that’s all I’ll say…
Vision
A footprint on the moon? Yes, a step
In the once-happeningness of pilgrimage;
Then, the furtive overlapping of cloud.
My heart tills an alertness of love,
Setting store for tomorrow’s troubles.
I hunker down by the field of drought
To see what can […]

Welcome to my blog, which I’ve called Blog Poetica for the time being. It could change - life’s like that, constantly evolving. I have changed so much in the last ten years it defies expression, but that’s what this blog is about. It might seem like a personal blog, but it’s not; […]