'A five-star poet'
LITERATURE WALES
'...the quirky, rural-epiphanic observations of Mark Blayney'
THE LAMPETER REVIEW
Published in Agenda, Poetry Wales, the delinquent and The Interpreter's House. Long-listed for the National Poetry Competition. Runner-up in the Arvon Postcard Competition, the Hungry Hill Poetry Prize and commended in the Poets Meet Painters Prize, Ireland. arrival
what is home? when you brought me here two hours ago it feels more like than where I live. I've known you a day and though we see we will not stay together we made our home we lay on blue sheets eating raisins from a bowl shoelaces playfully tied around your wrists and I drew, in felt tip across your shoulder blades boats and trees and birds and people swimming away. That pact to meet again at forty has been and gone. We met at the wrong time, you said; we could compare notes when we are older / wiser. Come to me when we can be young and forgetful in the distant future and we will marry. First published in Poetry Wales banqueting hall, tara I rolled in the grass and heard distant voices: adults eating the chink of cutlery rattle of glass a scrape of chair; and seeing my hands raw knees red and mystical (not my knees at all) the smoke rising softly, the memory of those not here and a diminished, but rousing, cheer First published in The Lampeter Review 7 favourite writing place I write words on your back a thought on your hand a verse across your stomach the central O rising and falling in the forest after rain you read yourself to me I throw away unused notebooks Second prize in the Arvon Postcard Competition clogher beach white spray the sea flicks into the sky blue of rain remembering hokusai he saying, modestly by the time I am ninety I hope I can be competent our lazy intent as we watch the spray in the sky to kiss, and idle while the sea does its work, diligently we lie in each other's arms and, you have to watch it, it's sly; the sea flicks into the sky. First published in The Lampeter Review, Issue 5 glimpse cloud took the sun away for a moment but the white house soon reappeared strange the reassurance we take from slight things you see concern on my face and kiss me lightly you taste of salt and summer I follow you down to the sea glowing Commended in the Poets Meet Painters poetry competition valley our new house trees like broccoli our toys the shadows forming windows with you I am five again we play by the fence knowing the house will call us back for tea we both hear, as we run our mothers' distant voices First published in The Lampeter Review, Issue 5 Peace 75 Peace is found in the corners; the fall of light on glass. The rattle of sea on a stone. With a corner we can think. Lean by a wall, feel the sun on our faces, enjoy the pregnant nowness of it all. Peace doesn’t arrive with a fanfare, or from beneath a magician’s cloth. It comes by building corners, one by one, invisible to begin with, insignificant even, cementing slowly, solidly, until they are everywhere. Commended in the Welsh Centre for International Affairs 'Peace75' competition, for a poem of exactly 75 words. . |