Full Description
'What is a poet?' the title poem of this collection, Cosmos Mariner, asks and answers: 'word-peckers, rhyming jackdaws of the world'.
The Cosmos Mariner was a real ship which caught the attention of American poet Conrad Aiken (1889 - 1973) and piqued his interest further when, checking the shipping news, he found its destination was listed as 'unknown'. This trope reappears throughout the dark undertow of this collection which contains poems reflecting the distracted political times of today.
Against this, gentler poems such as The Cleggan Sonnets and The Curve of Love show Harding's gift for capturing the fleeting moment of sight and sound and fixing them with a piercing simplicity that remains in the memory.
Contents
The Trainspotters 7
Nativity Play, Nice, France, Christmas 2018 8
Cosmos Mariner - Destination Unknown 9
The Million Dollar Fiddle 11
The Cleggan Sonettinas 13
The Killing Field Scheherazade 17
From a Railway Carriage 19
The Last Tramp in all England 21
King Cotton 23
Landfall, Small Island, Outer Hebrides 33
Catastrophy 35
Adlestrop Revisited 37
That First Step 39
Fool's Gold 41
The Curve of Love 44
A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Eve 45
Driftwood Maps 48
A Murano Dagger 50
Sweetheart 62
Fír Na Mappa 63
Unity Mitford's Dream 65
Hindu Kush Moon 67
Mythologies 69
The Long Acre 74
Dancing at the Cosmic Ceilidh 76
The Price of Sugar 78
Warm Summer Grass 80
The Paths 81
The Corrandrum Vase 82
Twitterstorm #Luther@Wurms 85
Undine - A Love Story 88
The Slap Bird 90
Love on the Scarborough Train 91
Paddy's Rambles Through the Park 93
Things You Will Never Know - #42 95
Bells at Midnight - New Year - 2015 97
This Morning War and Peace Was Sick 99
A Letter from Connemara 101
Moon Over the Bens 103
