New Year Book sale 

 January sales   $0.99 

starts Dec31st.  

Must end  Jan 7th.   

Hurry. 

Hope

Poem:

6th November

This morning my son and I

searched the lane for fallen rockets.

We found only one:

 a charred remnant amongst sodden leaves

run over by a car.

'Obviously a dud,' I said, 'burnt out

before it had even reached those trees.'

'No Dad,' he said.

'This fell back to earth

after it had scorched the stars.'

Stuart Larner

(earlier version first published disguised in prose on the letters page Scarborough Evening News , 10/11/08).

my new book, written under the nom-de-plume Rosy Stewart. co-authored with Rosie Larner.

Hope: Stories from a Women's Refuge

The story of three women who track down perpetrators of domestic violence. A series of their cases.

Comfort Regained

I found my old Teddy in a cupboard,
A cross stitched over where each eye once lay.
His mouth is sewn into a smile so broad
As though he’d still have soothing things to say.

His ear hangs off as if he’s strained so long
And worn it out listening all those years.
Time’s washed us both: I’ve grown, he’s shrunk, among
The tumble-turnings of my adult cares.

Feel his fur. Comforting is his soft art.
Still the same cuddly stuffing all way through.
Against my cheek I think I hear his heart.
You hold him. Listen. You might hear him too.

Stuart Larner

first published by Every Day Poets

New Book!

The Car 

Republished in a new illustrated edition after 21 years.

A series of twenty-eight Shakespearean sonnets describing the human condition in terms of the workings of a motor car.

An owner’s workshop manual for servicing your life.

My Canine Excuse

Walking the dog at night,

the realms of scent and sight

flow from this lamppost and your house.

There’s freshly-coded news to sniff,

and a curtain only partly-drawn

shows me your light-blue TV world.

Suddenly you look out –

we see each other

like photographers caught in each other’s picture.

A world opens on this moment,

so huge its power rushes down the leash and

tugs me to your door.

Stuart Larner

(first published Every Day Poets).

first published, as a delicious meal of poetry on EveryDay Poets:

The Five Course Reunion 

i)

The melon crescents were served

Back to back like a frown.

When ours were collected afterwards 

They had been turned over into a smile.

ii)

The soup darkens as we stir,

Reds and greens arise then sink.

The stop and go of us these years.

Boundaries split, natures mix. Catch

Them in our spoons, rediscover

The recipe for what we were.

iii)

Choose a wing with me.

If they are from the same bird

It will fly again .

  

iv)

Let's halve this Emmental, you said,

Though in our hands at first

The cheese knife curved away

Nervous at slicing so deep into

Fermented joys we'd sealed up tight.

But then we saw ourselves,

Heart valves, moon craters,

Half-formed question marks,

Caverns echoing our answer.

v)

After so long you`ve opened it again

To seek some biscuit bits,

Edges smoothed in the jostling jar.

Once fresh with flavour at first snap,

Now old and soft and taking on

The crumbs of ones they`re kept with.

Like you and me, a match can`t now exactly be

Rejoined at where it broke, the art is to agree

Two pieces can taste about the same.

Stuart Larner