Poems By Simon Beechinor

This experimental sonnet is intended as a tongue-in-cheek reflection on my transition through puberty. It is written (with exceptions) in iambic pentameter with an abab cdcd efef gg rhyme. I’ve used classical references to compare myself to Michelangelo’s ‘David’. ‘Bianco ordinario’ is a second-grade marble that Michelangelo used for David. ‘Contrapposto’ is a pose whereby the hips and shoulders lie at opposing angles with the body’s weight bearing on one leg. ‘Abbozzo’ is a rough-hewn draft or model, and a ‘blocco di marmo’ is a raw, unshaped block. I, a preening youth before my window, glimpsed a likeness of David, well-favoured, with flesh sublime in bianco ordinario , my face, an image of resolve unfettered. My limbs, like David's graceful contours, framed my ripened fruit beneath budding flowers, and puberty’s change to manhood proclaimed my nascent ardour for impassioned lovers. And like a muse in studied contrapposto , opposing my sculpted hips and shoulders, Alas, I remaine

This poem is dedicated to my mother who, more than anyone else and for better or worse, inspired me to ‘join those wandering ships’. The Bishop Rock is a lighthouse near the Gilstone Reef off the Isles of Scilly. The ‘haunting, distant call’ refers to the fog signals emitted by lighthouses to benefit passing mariners. My mother led me among the granite tors through grass of sheep’s fescue, wavy hair, and common bent. Together, we savoured the perfumed wild thyme. We marvelled at tapestries of lichens, binding, holding fast in colonies of pale sage, deep emerald, and gold. And I heard the cry of the Bishop Rock, in a haunting, distant call of warning. We played my childish game of counting ships emerging from the morning mist. One by one, they ploughed in spectral shapes as silhouettes to fade from view, though not from my restless mind. We dreamed of whence they came, the nature of their burden, and whither they were bound. And I heard the cry of the Bishop Rock, in a haunting, distant

This poem is dedicated to the memory of Private Patrick O’Callaghan (40296) of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. He now lies, almost forgotten, in an unmarked grave near Middlesbrough. Patrick was brought home from France in November 1917, alive but a broken man. We visited his grave in 2024, he has no memorial but this poem. Stand easy, brother; my war is over. Our kin know of my soldier's forfeit, They’ve stood their solemn vigil by my side, Now, we may sleep beneath the vaulted skies. No Portland stone bears witness to my fate Amid the torn and tortured fields of France; A shattered soul, they brought me home to rest, For our futile war had crushed my mind. My bitter war was fought alone, unseen By others until I screamed in haunted fear, And would suffer the thoughtless jests of fools, As shell-shocked nerves conjured with my limbs. In time, this earth became my peaceful bed, And the freshly mown grass became my shroud, Oft draped in dew and red and golden leaves, So long I’ve

This poem is a portrait of an Australian stevedore I once met as we both watched cargo being loaded onboard my ship for Papua New Guinea. New Guinea was a vicious and bloody theatre of the Second World War where ANZACs and Americans fought, often hand-to-hand, against their ferocious Japanese enemy.  The foreman stood beside the slewing crane; As he watched our cargo stowed below, Within the vessel's deep and gaping maw. His weathered face was deeply lined and tanned,  With once-bright grey eyes, now aging and dimmed. 'You're loading for New Guinea, Mister Mate? We went up there in forty-two and three, To bloody Kokoda, Milne Bay and Lae.'  He raised his calloused hands for me to see  The cruel scars that bound his sinewed arms.  'I still succumb to vivid, hellish dreams; Sweat-soaked in fear and swallowed by the bush, I hack and hack and hack the kunai grass, That swishes, slashes and slices my skin, Then wade neck-deep through blood-sucking swamps. The crack of ri

Within these lines, a poem yearns for the affection of a reader. Could you be that reader and the one to whom this poem is dedicated? I beg you, turn to my fair printed page, That you may know of these enraptured words, And form them, one by one, upon your lips, To linger there, as an ardent lover’s kiss, And then to softly fall in cadenced whispers, That quicken the metre of my desire. My love for you is writ upon this page, That flutters at your caring fingers' touch. Oh, hold me close beside your gentle heart, That we may walk in faultless rhythm Amid the press and tumult of your day, And calm the roiling waters of your mind. Photo: Alexandra Fuller at Unsplash

This poem is dedicated to ‘Speedy’, the elderly factotum at my business in Hong Kong. We were forced to close the firm in 1999 because of the impact of the Asian financial crisis, and one hundred and fifty staff, including me, lost their jobs.       The poem is written as a sonnet in iambic pentameter, except for lines 10 and 12, which are in trochee pentameter, whereby I’ve deliberately shifted the emphasis to particular words for greater impact. I've blighted many anxious lives today, For we must close as Asian markets crash. A softly-spoken older man did weep In grief and anguish at my futile words, For fear and terror stalked him as a child As he fled at first from the Rising Sun, And then the fevered chaos of Mao's Red Guard. Yet he was young and had, with luck, survived, But now he's terror-struck once more. He fears Empty days amid his Mong Kok high-rise, And pleads in tears for answers I can't give, 'Where will I go each day? What will I do? My life is here

This poem is dedicated to unwilling butterflies, wherever you are. The season's first typhoon brought violent winds And drenching torrents of storm-driven rain. Most people had gone home and left the streets, The shops and traders’ stalls, the bars and clubs, Deserted, save for butterflies like me. While Mama-san cursed at the angry storm, I sang romantic ballads to my friends, And brushed aside their gentle-hearted teasing, The saddest songs soothed our wasted lives, And bound our bonds of friendship tight. I sang about a broken-hearted girl, Who took a sharpened blade to end her life, Yet, as the dagger pierced her naked breast, And she lay cold near death, her love returns To save her life and take her home at last. A young man appeared at our door alone, As Mama-san worried at her meagre profit, She'd gladly see the honest seaman skinned, She fussed and grumbled at the pouring rain, And led him, childlike, by the hand to me. Before I left the stage to please her guest, And

This portrait is of a ship’s captain who became a friend. We sailed on several ships together and I came to know him well, I was his chief officer. Alas, he’s dead now and was, in his own words, ‘as rough as guts’. He’d take no exception to anything I’ve written here. There’s a strong breeze blowing from the west, Bringing salt air laden with the smells of fuel oil, Pollution and cooking across Victoria Harbour. I can see the barges rolling heavily beside the anchored ships, Their loads swinging wildly beneath the slewing derricks. I’ve dragged him from the bar in the seamen’s mission, And we're waiting for a launch back to the ship, He’s greeting evening strollers like long-lost friends, And banging on about me being a 'bloody farmer', I like him, he's a good seaman, but he's hard work. Now he’s sobering up, I can stand and watch him. He runs a hand over his shaven, close-cropped head, His bleary-eyes and face mottled by years of alcohol, Make his squat features l

This poem is about a medevac operation by two pilots on an oil field west of Mumbai (Bombay). Flying conditions were appalling. The American pilots remained true to their word when they declared many weeks earlier that if we needed them, they would come. The pilots were ex-Vietnam veterans and had flown gunship and medevac operations there. The pilot’s voice crackles, ‘Papa Charlie, this is Kilo Lima,’ The ship’s hove to, plunging and heaving in the writhing swell, ‘ETA your helo-deck, zero three minutes. Are we clear? Over.’ I glance at the lacerated diver. The bastard’s going through hell, At last, the chopper beats towards us in the hot and humid air. ‘Roger, Kilo Lima, deck’s clear. We’ve got a damned heavy sea.’ Now I can hear the percussive drumming of the huey's rotors. ‘Copy that, Papa Charlie. It’s like goin’ into a hot LZ!’ My crew stand ready by the deck as the bird approaches, And the chopper beats above us in the hot and humid air. The wind, salt and rust from the deck

For a careless moment, suspend your disbelief; Put aside the grim cares of Gaza, Ukraine, Syria and Iran. Perhaps imagine changing the colour of your skin! Have courage; bend your mind to the feeble politics of man. However hard it is, imagine yourself upon a human tide, Of refugees who may yet be distant in their plight. Be not arrogant and say, ‘It wouldn’t happen here’, Suspend your disbelief and, for now, assume it might. Imagine poor Britain amid monstrous tumult and aflame, And a cold-hearted Wales has, at last, built its Trumpish wall. You learn from the BBC you’re among an English ‘swarm’, Oh, how the corrupted politicians wring their hands appalled. When you fled your home to land upon our golden shore, How hard you fell among the dreary lexicon of refugees. Criminals! Boat people! Immigrants! Send them back! Fly them to Rwanda, where none may hear your pleas! What innocence brought you to your dreadful impasse? Did you fail to love the Party, or are you merely poor, Perhaps y

Japanese haikus traditionally consist of three lines with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern, often capturing a moment in nature or a fleeting emotion. The haiku developed from the hokku, the opening three lines of a longer poem known as a tanka. The haiku became a separate form of poetry in the 17th century.  For Her Doubt, like winter brings, A chill darkness to my day, Yet fair spring emerges.

This poem, of a stevedore mourning the passing of a way of life, is written as a villanelle, comprising five tercets and one quatrain of ten syllables in each line with a formal and distinctive rhyming pattern. The Stevedore The city docks stand idle and forlorn, And aged warehouses lie decaying, The sky weeps soft and gentle tears to mourn. The long grass grows between the cobbles worn, By the tides of men and cargo passing, The city docks stand idle and forlorn. The ships, seamen and stevedores have gone, Now, few hold memories of our calling, The sky weeps soft and gentle tears to mourn. Who remains to hear the gang foreman's scorn, Saved for those who avoid fair labouring? The city docks stand idle and forlorn. Or board the meat-boat in the early morn, Holds full from her Kiwi coastal's loading? The sky weeps soft and gentle tears to mourn. For one last time, I pass those gates well-worn, My memory, like the tide, is ebbing, The city docks stand idle and forlorn, The sky we

This is the story of Alf, a cleaner whom I once knew when he worked in a factory in South Wales. Like many people who perform such work, Alf seemed invisible and most people never spoke to him. I developed a friendship with him, of sorts, and his story is one of the most remarkable I've heard. He deserves his place in history, and it's to him that I dedicate this poem. The old cleaner bent to his mop, And swabbed the washroom floor. ‘You surely must have been there, Alf, What d’you do in the war?’ He was small, silver-haired and stooped, Invisible to most. He rarely spoke; a quiet man, In his simple work engrossed. He looked long at the mirrored wall, And a younger man replied. ‘Oh, I had a busy war, boy,’ And he spoke on with pride. ‘I was a miner here, in Pontypridd,’ His lilting voice compelled me, To pause, to stand and listen well, And so he told his story. ‘Over two hundred of us left, We volunteered to fight, ’Gainst Franco and the fascists, To help freedom in her plight