may look at –

wondering what makes you tick

over smoothly, or squeak.

O my trusty steed,

my rusty three-speed,

I would feed you the best oats

if oats

were applicable.

Only linseed oil

will do

to nourish you.

I want

so much to paint

you,

midnight blue

mudgutter black

and standing as you do, ironic

at the rail

provided by the Council –

beautiful

the sun caught in your back wheel –

or at home in the hall, remarkable

among other bicycles,

your handlebars erect.

Allow me to depict

you thus. And though I can’t do justice

to your true opinion of the surface

of the road –

put into words

the nice distinctions that you make

among the different sorts of tarmac –

still I’d like to set the record of our travels straight.

I’d have you know that

not with three-in-one

but with my own

heart’s

spittle I anoint your moving parts.

Gillian Allnutt

A Winter Ride

Who shall declare the joy of the running!

Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight!

Springing and spurning the tufts of wild heather,

Sweeping, wide-winged, through the blue dome of light.

Everything mortal has moments immortal,

Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright.

So with the stretch of the white road before me,

Shining snowcrystals rainbowed by the sun,

Fields that are white, stained with long, cool, blue shadows,

Strong with the strength of my horse as we run.

Joy in the touch of the wind and the sunlight!

Joy! With the vigorous earth I am one.

Amy Lowell

Driving Back Over the Blue Ridge,

you say that the leaves are late in turning.

Half way up the wooded hill to our right

the sun has decanted itself

into a single maple tree.

There are days like that

which sing orange and red

in the forest of our ordinary green.

These are the days we hang our souls upon

as high above them the sun withdraws.

Moya Cannon

‘Golden windows in a wall’ – Words Can Set You Free

A book is a thing of power. On the shelves of any library are stacked time machines, stately galleons, space shuttles and trapdoors ready to plunge the reader into unfamiliar landscapes, seen through new eyes. These poems celebrate the sheer giddy delight of reading.

Girls and women in the past were frequently denied unfettered access to literature and education, and it is heartbreaking that, in some places in today’s world, they are still struggling for equal opportunities. Here Sarah Egerton, writing in the early 1700s, launches a blistering manifesto in ‘The Emulation’ inciting women to take up space in the literary world, and Diane Glancy and Audre Lorde leave us in no doubt that words can break down walls.

In a Cardiff Arcade, 1952

One of those little shops too small

for the worlds they hold, where words

that sing you to sleep, stories

that stalk your dreams,

open like golden windows in a wall.

One small room leads to another,

the first bright-windowed on the street,