Personal

The Midwest does not connote hedonism or even excitement. Kansas City is not a favorite destination, even for just one night in a downtown hotel, but where better to relive some long-forgotten

A fearful analogy of my native Wales and our American neighboring region of

With acknowledgements to Richard Llewellyn and “How Green Was My

Too many conversations with members of my generation start and end with descriptions and complaints about ageing. I try to avoid discussing such matters, hence this

Table Mountain in Cape Town is a wonderful sight, especially on a beautiful spring evening, sitting on the Waterfront; but the whispery clouds that form on the table, summon some other

No explanation is needed here, as the world is still reeling from financial stupidity, incompetence and

Appreciation of music varies throughout life; just a few reflections on the ageing

We still live within a cauldron of creativity, but only just, as the influence of technologies interferes with creative processes – and we are not even addressing artificial intelligence

I had been asked to write and present a poem to a collection of world-class cardiologists and cardiac surgeons in Cape

Spring comes very belatedly to North Carolina, but omens on the world stage are not

For millions of people around the world, where very little hope for a future exists, one horrendous day merges into

At a poetry reading in Franschhoek, I was aware that a black man from Zimbabwe, who we had come to know and respect very well through his service at a restaurant, was going to come to the event – his first experience with poetry. His name was Knowledge and throughout his early life he had struggle to be free in his own country before migrating to South Africa. This was written with him in

Truth and Reconciliation, best epitomized by the work of Archbishop Tutu in South Africa, are two words that should sit well together, but human nature is not always

Hospitals are rarely bright and beautiful places, as worried patients, families and friends mix with earnest professionals doing their best for those in their care. I have a genetic condition that is not at all troublesome, as long as I have five or six phlebotomies every year, where a volume of blood, and the excess iron it contains, is removed from my body and thrown away. My condition thus requires me to attend a hospital, wherever in the world we are, for this procedure, which is usually done in the cancer ward – since that is where hematologists largely work and where the nurses have the skills to painlessly get into the veins. So I am treated in a ward surrounded by patients with the most serious of

Passwords, the bane of our lives; we can’t do without them, but they should be as memorable as a good glass of wine. Rickety Bridge is a vineyard in

This is a poem written to mark the 50th birthday of a good friend of ours, joint owner of the Ebony Curated Gallery in

Medical technology is increasingly becoming reliant on nanotechnology, with all the uncertainties that it

This is just to remind us that frivolity has a place in