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