Author Archives: colinhopkirk

Border Business 1943-67 Theodorus Gregorius  Apostolus Van Kempen  and his bicycle gang  harried the Wehrmacht through border forests, with sporadic hit and run Busy fleas can make an army itch Now he makes them pay again charging weekenders a little dividend, for old times sake The Duitsers still invade   in droves and don’t complain aboutContinue reading “Grenszaken 1943-67”

Be careful how you use your talking claw.  The more shit the bigger it gets, taking more and more and more of what you are to keep on top of it. Of course words count  unless you plan to tell the world  exactly what it lacks according to you  over and over  in detail anotherContinue reading “Crabtalk”

Handsome dude, slick  black eyeliner Street kid, scruff feathered young punk Pale dun girl,  neat winged sidler Stocky boy who barges in, no allegiances Small picky one,  thrower of seeds Acrobat boy works the tree, busy hustler These days we have time  to name the sparrows

I am really pleased to have recently joined Cath Drake’s 6 week writing workshop, Writing to Buoy Us, connecting 10 of us in our locked down homes across the planet by Zoom for 2 hours each week. Any sort of writing goes, with set texts to read, discuss and inspire, exercises and optional ‘homework’. IfContinue reading “International Writers Workshop”

In the lane a thousand fireworks each cluster star and  spark a fusillade of light  held  

Star white flower heads, constellations laced in double umbels  float on hollow stalks, elegant engineering combining lightness  with tensile strength  for beauty’s sake.

A small crowd looks up  at the edge of the forest,  houses only yards away, lawns and dams and  washing on the line. Even as our eyes adjust from sun to broken shade we see nothing but trees until, blink and you’d miss it, a shadow half uncoils, black tongue flickering sifting our molecules.   

Inside the hedge high inside the green of it  where sun lights each  emerald  leaf breathing in all of it, all at once  earth and green and sun and shade  and sharp and cool  and bright bird song the edge of  a world I am almost in

Each night the little emigre  returns from the Island  with tales of human cattle. Vienna is a world away. A life can be recast, Jonas becomes Josef, the dark controlled by magic, by conjuring brocade and painted plaster, smoke and light and mirrors, everything reframed in perfect chiaroscuro. All this in unsafe silver.  In dreamsContinue reading “Jonas/Josef”

Our writers have completed the 28 day challenge we set ourselves, five of us in the UK, and one in the US. Between us we have generated over 150 poems, or proto-poems, rich material to work up. Occasionally a gem appears, needing nothing more, complete in itself. Each of us has produced at least one.Continue reading “A Poem a Day”