New Book of Poetry forthcoming

During summer 2013 a new collection of poetry by Rob and his friend Garry Kilworth, will be published by PS Publishing. It will not be available for pre-order until May 2013.

It’s called Poems, Peoms and Other Atrocities. Rob thoroughly enjoyed writing these poems – and ‘peoms’ (poems which, in his view, didn’t quite make it and were just a bit of fun) – in the last two years of his life. We hope you will derive as much enjoyment from them as he did! Rob hugely admired Garry Kilworth’s poems, and he would have been thrilled to have them alongside his in this volume.

As a taster, here is his poem, ‘The Passing of the Alpha‘, which is part of the anthology:

In memory of David Biggs 1926-2009

I was not there
when he walked over the hill
and the light of dusk took his shadow.

He paused for a moment
at the top of the road

thinking of his girls

the tall, broad man, the rock
of his family,
moving quietly through
the stillness;
walking down
to a place we can only imagine.

Imagination, image, magic,
root memory,
that is the old boy now.

His shade,
is one more shadow
in a woodland glade
the dreaming place:
his voice, calm memory,
the alpha purr,
a whisper of love,
and when needed,
a sharp note of direction.

At the break and set
when the light is perfect
we will see the tall man on the hill
crossing the border —

and though he faces away from us
as he must
his breath is the wind of life, and still

and still,
and still.

Old wolf.

RH, July 2009