From the foreword, and Sun in the morning kitchen

Our lives are made up mostly of ordinary things:

Sun in the morning kitchen
Rings the day’s bell clear and lively
Sings with the frying sizzle
The tap’s swish
The kettle’s hiss and bubble.

...and the poet, like a still-life painter, may bring us to what was already there.

(Extracted from the editor's foreword, lines from Sun in the morning kitchen.)

Cover for Heres and Nows

There was a problem displaying the image of the front cover of the book as it caused some of my text to be obscured. Here is the cover image again, I hope problem-free this time. I am doing the final edits to correct errors spotted in the proof copy. Available on Amazon soon.

From All strangers who smile

Extract from a poem from Heres and Nows by David Henschel. No commentary necessary.

I know nothing more
Surely of the present
Than a stranger’s
Unexpected smile.

The past stays in
Future attends
Corner and antechamber
Of the mind

But the smile
From nowhere out of nothing
Flies like that sparrow from dark to dark

New poetry from Narrow Gate Press

From Narrow Gate Press comes the first publication of poems by the late David Henschel.


Heres and Nows - poems from a life will be available from Amazon very soon. The link will be posted on this blog.


Meanwhile I shall publish here one poem or a significant extract once a month, and commentary on significant lines or thoughts arising from the book once a week. Please ask permission before reproducing these poems (other than brief extracts for review) as they are subject to copyright. My contact email is at the foot of the right hand column of this page.


Here is the title poem:


Here and Now



Enjoy, oh do enjoy
The hereness and the nowness of it.
Whatever is beyond, behind
Be, if you must, aware of
But not too much – no more than serves
To measure by, to savour by
To live by grace within
The here and now.


It is the clumsy man we too much are
That cannot delicately hold the time
Within his juggling mind
And commandeer the chasing heart
Softly to send the blood like fingers
To touch and know the living hour
And store it richly by.


One day we die.
They say we scan
In the last living moments all our span.
We’d wish, I think, to go to Death
Or God
Like guests with gifts
Remembered and collected from our store
Of heres and nows
And say:
This trust of life’s fulfilled,
This gift’s returned, with more I found:
I was not poor.