The trucks, you know, are ready to go now The road is long through the soft falling snow Kyiv lies waiting in the early morning Can they see us at night? I just don’t know I’m too nervous to light a cigarette Anyway I don’t ever smoke, at all There’s plenty smoke and fire to go around Driving without lights is like driving blind I don’t have a truck’s licence or a gun But they need bullets, and food before dawn

Today, I walked down to the lake, a minute or two away from my caravan, as I usually do, either in the fresh crisp morning air, or in the smooth evenings, when the diamond lights of Montreux grow across the bay, as dusk falls. But today was special. Today was beautiful. I felt energised, excited even, to be out, with big, gentle snowflakes adding layers upon layer to deep snow— and all in one morning! How exciting change can be! By the lake I stood quite alone, content, in awe almost. And I looked down, noticed I was wearing slippers, in my eagerness to go outside and experience the winter. So I stood with frozen feet, but not willing to move from my position on the front row of my reverie.

Press to listen (by 10cc) while reading My breakfast — marmalade, coffee, toast, the taste of new-found love, her toussled hair, loose sweater, lace underwear, an adventurous soul: I pinch her ankles tug her thick socks back up cut the bread spill the juice she rolls a sock off over…

In Yakutian Meadows A piece of ethnic copper art I gave back, but a photograph I was urged to keep written for dversepoets.com Where is she now The girl whose picture I found Framed and bound in cuneiform copper design Sitting among spring grasses Eyes sparkling bright, embedded in her heirloom What were her dreams, then Were they of the Siberian shaman, who speak in symbols and howl to the wolves

Observations during a Saturday night — Another bar closes for the night, the drunkards spill out into slimey streets. Whores swarm, ready with bated breath — from abated, slowed, stopped, dropped; to lie slathered in fried beer fat fumes, under cigarettes soaked in caveman dna. At the casino, mafia don wannabees, a last vestige of Thatcherism, ply their trade. And what is their trade? These suave weekenders trade in fists, in an effort to regain prowess lost at the roulette wheel. And why are they allowed out, from their gay-hating households for another night of male-prostitute shagging? Because many have been vaccinated, for the sole purpose of throwing up their kebabs at 2 am. And I, I am the city, home of the walking wounded, none of which will ever be awarded a purple heart. No. I dress in their stories, patterned and purple as night…

SCENE 1: Sarajevo, oh Sarajevo, where the war seemed to last forever, and the Serb irregulars swigged their rajika, while they picked them off, from the hills, in the city below, one by one, or ten by ten, with mortar fire, and missiles SCENE 4: Admira, Bosnian, Muslim, Bosko, Serbian…

A few thoughts on the Winter War, November 1939 to April 1940 — When the Soviet Union invaded Finland, battles raged in Finnish forests all winter. Finns resorted to methods such as cooking sausages to attract starved Soviet troops, with snipers lying in wait, such as Simo Häyhä, who lay in the snow for hours, at –45°C. Finnish troops included frontline synagogues.

I once spent a few days in a hotel room in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. On the last evening before leaving for the border, a woman made me a pot of tea, and we had one of those chats you can only have when travelling. In the morning I got up from the sofa where I slept, left rolled up banknotes in her shoe, went downstairs for a coffee, and scribbled some lines… — I’m in the Samarkand Hotel A knock on the door

A quadrille is a poem consisting of exactly 44 words. Please bear with me over the long introduction — Her fist came through the crowd. "Take it, please!" she screamed, her voice briefly clear, isolated from the shouting, pleading, and the roar of the turboprops of our large Hercules military transport plane; a sudden wind lashing at her headscarf. I looked down at her opening hand, folded note between long fingers…