Writing, photography and more by Daniel Greenwood
In the dunes we hear his hoarse
hollering, with reindeer lichens
and crumbling caverns of sand
arriving where our feet
meet the horizon.
We run under the clouds
the sea to our side
to see the wind tugging his
hair curling from his head
eyes glistening behind eggs
of steel-rimmed glasses:
he’s seen a goshawk below
hiding in a bramble bush.
© Daniel James Greenwood 2016
Swilling in hawthorn
a restless summer evening on the downs
its yellow and white bedstraw
fit for our bodies, backs and snoring
our gritting teeth
I watch the chafers
as they become silhouettes
as their numbers slide
into the bristling night
drunk on dusk
the dip, swoop and dive
returning to an uncertain
place in the sky
© Daniel James Greenwood 2015
12 months ago I published a booklet of poems entitled I am living with the animals
And to celebrate National Poetry Day (in the UK), here’s a set of recordings of all 20 poems:
Daniel
The concrete and riverside
flip flop driftwood and rope
harrier haunting a level of reeds
some policeman of phragmites
of seedy beards that bend and shiver
to the breathing Thames
and its godlike pylon
with chickweed toenails
and ravens for lice.
It’s an icon of a time
when England created
for an age when
she will but consume.
Marshland—
you will be deleted.
© Daniel James Greenwood 2015
Swanscombe Marshes is threatened by an impending planning application from London Paramount to turn the area into a theme park. This could have devastating consequences ecologically. Please have a look at the following links:
Last October I self-published I am living with the animals, a booklet of poems. You can buy it here, and above you can listen to a reading of The Spey, a poem about walking some of the Speyside Way in the Cairngorms in the Scottish Highlands.
Imagine if swifts flew through
the empty tunnels of the underground,
if herons trod through the house of commons,
if nightingale sang from the stands
of the Oval, just imagine
what people would say
I don’t think they’d notice.
Maybe the politicians would shriek
and shrivel up in their seats
calling war, terror, personnel error!
‘Imagine! If a big eel stalking
egret could get in here
anyone can and anyone will.’
Herons: aspiring terrorists,
I always knew there was something
dodgy about them.
© Daniel James Greenwood 2015
The diptera’s wings
the low boil of an aircraft
the scribbling of this pen
on this paper
and the flutter
of the opposite page.
All that is without sound:
the valleys and hills
the glaciers created
the small spots
of trees in leaf
in the bright fields
the white butterfly
searching golden grasses
nettles and even me
for somewhere
to scatter its seed
© Daniel James Greenwood 2015
Reed warbler song
etched with green daggers,
elongated spears of leaves,
deep in the shadowy murk of
wet stems and skins:
a songburst like a child’s
rattle, but just one phrase
breaks into the alder-
leaden air, into willow bows,
extended over a pond fed by the
Regent’s Canal.
© Daniel James Greenwood 2015
Gathered from the grass, it was
robbed from the box
early by the cat
and toyed with in
the clover.
Tentatively he picks it up
in his hand and climbs the
tree to put the baby bird back.
© Daniel James Greenwood 2015
Crock and clenk!
The sound of ice on ice,
crack! Her toes breaking
shards, bergs, islands
that slide off into an ocean
of brown mud and field
water, the falling sun
caught, frozen in the rink
of rainfall captured and
exhibited like some
petty show of power.
Unlocking Landscapes 