Call me Worm Eye; Paschal Eye, Lenten eye, Crow eye, Crust eye, Sugar eye, Sap eye. All
these names I am, full in a daylight sky.
Make my wishes come true, bless this soft small

garden in moonlight. I prepare the earth
for your planting. Prepare yourself for change.
Call me Gust Eye and Plough Eye. It’s so
worth
seeing my Sap Eye bleed and worms rise range

over warm soil, after snow melt and ice crust
refrozen glints before it too, melts. Turn
plough, bring up riches, bury weeds, You must,
prepare my ground for my eye to relearn

new beginnings, my Chaste soil sight dug fresh,
this eye returned from hard dark starts to stretch. 
 

Image credit:Raymond Huffman
Paul Brookes

Paul Brookes is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. First play performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Hull. His chapbooks include debut chapbook: The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). Collections: A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), As Folk Over Yonder (Afterworld Books, 2019). A poetry collaboration with artist Jane Cornwell resulted in "Wonderland in Alice, plus other ways of seeing", (JC Studio Press, 2021). The beginning of the "Ganders" septology, whose other books are: "As Folktaleteller" (ImpSpired, 2022), "These Random Acts of Wildness, (Glass Head Press, 2023), "Othernesses", (JC Studio Press, 2023), Wolf Eye (Red Ceilings Press, 2023), Wolf Eye Territory (ImpSpired, 2024), Ever Striding Edge (Dark Winter Press, 2024). "The Dude Work," (Sherwood Press, 2024). Не has had work broadcast on BBC Radio 3 The Verb and videos of his Self-Isolation sonnet sequence featured by Barnsley Museums and Hear My Voice Barnsley. He also does photography commissions.

 

Recently his work has been broadcast on BBC Radio Sheffield. He does not believe in competitions, but has been nominated for the Rhysling Prize, and thrice for the Pushcart Prize. Recently, guest edited for Setumag "Some British Working Class Poets" for a second year.

 

He edits The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews and challenges

 

and a new Substack webzine, The Starbeck Orion.

 

https://thewombwellrainbow.wordpress.com

 

https://substack.com/The Starbeck Orion | Substack