About Me

About Me

Gardener, Writer

A former English teacher and bookseller, I now work as a self-employed gardener (National Certificate in Horticulture) and write poetry, plays and essays. My writing credits can be viewed here. I have had two poetry books and two poetry pamphlets published by various publishers. I was a co-translator of Alain-Fournier:Poems (Carcanet). I commissioned and edited Four American Poets (The High Window Press) and was a co-editor at The High Window (2016-2018). My essays can be read at the Fortnightly Review. I enjoy cycling, fell-running, sea swimming, dog-walking, jazz, travel, reading, horticulture and garden design.

7.9.21

On the Blue Parrot in Casablanca

 

The Other CafĂ©  


Hearing ‘Caravan’ by Duke Ellington

and I’m at the Blue Parrot in Casablanca:

the house bird perched outside 

unfazed by whirring ceiling fans

and the belly dancer’s creeping shadow. 

The band playing jazz to a fluent clientele 

leave the exotic bird unperturbed. 

A street market unfolds under her gaze. 


How simple the menu at the Blue Parrot:

pleasure, talk, a handshake, the deal.

No choice to be made about right or wrong,

ideals or love, one song over another. 

Buying and selling is Signor Ferrari’s trade, 

attending to his business of the day,

a rake-off on sex, liquor, hookahs.


The patrons of the Blue Parrot, 

each going their own way to somewhere, 

outside into the busy street 

heading for wherever home is, 

or through a crystal curtain at the Blue Parrot

to the dark side of a mountain, desert. 

Ghosts in the dream song here. 


- Anthony Costello


https://www.spectator.co.uk/poem/the-other-caf-