Wau

I was sitting in an old 4x4

In Wau, South Sudan
Waiting for my friend
Who was in the market
Looking for a toilet seat

There wasn't another white man
For miles
And I was happy with that

I watched you coming

Slowly, diligently

Old
Beautiful
Impossibly graceful
Dressed in rags

With a dirty rice sack
Picking through rubbish
On the roadside

Bottles and bottle tops I think
Perhaps there were a few shillings
In it

Enough for a handful of rice

You came alongside the car
And I scrabbled my pockets
For everything I had

It wasn't much

You took it
And looked me
Straight in the eye

At me and in me

And for that moment
There was nothing
Between us

And everything  

You continued
On your way

I have forgotten
Ten thousand faces since

But not your eyes

I think of them

Every day


John H Davies
17th IX 2026

David Gurr-Gearing

I saw you again just now

After some time
Although we met
Occasionally
Over the years

But not enough
My fault
And I remember your
Father and sister
And brothers

And my rather
Protracted speech at my
18th birthday party at Old Meadows

I was about to go to war

The important people were there
You
Rupert Barrington Harbage
You know the others
All significant, and

A gentleman farmer
John Heatley – who had been
Tasked (I’m sure) by my father
To tell me he watched
His fellows burn to death in
A tank – at Anzio

And of course as a young fuck
I thanked him and continued to war

John H Davies

17th IX 2026

Burden

Every day feels heavy

I don’t look forward to
the morning

I don’t look forward
to turning in

because I know I will be left
with my thoughts
until I drop off
which recently is not likely

Every day is heavy
because of what I’ve seen
and know

The expectations of those
I knew

Yes I grew, but

Every day grows heavier
because I’m bored now
if I’m honest

Isn’t anyone else
bored?


John H Davies

5th IX 2026

▶️Watch me recite this poem

Radio Silence

As he sailed past sixty-four
with each day passing faster,
it came as a shock
to acknowledge the rapidity
of his body’s deterioration.

An early spinal injury
had left him a leg
with little feeling,
which shook his confidence.

Sometimes, without his stick
he worried people
would think him drunk
when he stumbled.

His knees hurt whenever
he got up.
That had happened quickly.

And he often gave the impression
he was ignoring people,
when in reality
he’d never heard them.

Recently she asked if
he’d join her for church,
and he politely declined,
despite attempting commitment
to being more open
about such things.

It now felt hypocritical.
All he’d ever experienced
was radio silence,
despite his half-hearted search
for something spiritual.

She asked where he found solace,
and he shrugged.

She asked again in the morning.
They’d both thought about it,
and he offered:
Friends, family, people, poetry, music, you…?
‘But you hate people’ she smiled.
She’d meant it kindly.

Whatever the truth,
he missed his avuncular ghosts.
And when he thought about
solace he considered its meaning.
And realised the tempting
symmetry of
solace in solitude.

Or was that
solitude in solace?

John H Davies

9th VIII 2026

▶️Watch me recite this poem

The Long Way Home

As he sat in a pew, someone asked
where he was from.

He hadn’t considered it for many years.
He knew where he’d been born
and raised
in old Albion.

But the several places he’d
later lain his
hat
had left him a gypsy
which he sometimes offered
lightheartedly.

When only a teenager
he visited the great southern lands
beyond the equator.
His mother thought he’d never return
but he did.

In the years that followed
he’d felt at home
in the narrow lands
twixt two great continents
a thin green isthmus
small but meaningful.

And more recently
the ancient cradle
where the acacias grow
where he was happy enough
to die.

And now returned to the land
of the long white cloud
he continues the search for home.

Wondering whether it’s a lover
or family
people

places
aromas
vistas
dreams

or still a road diverging in that wood.


John H Davies

VI July 2026

▶️Watch me recite this poem

Harbour

I found home within you.
It took some time
To realize you’d been there,
All along.

Of course I knew it.
For I always rushed to you
When I was hurting.

I don’t know why you waited.
I think you knew about
Life’s synchronicity.

You knew what I did not.
And I thank whatever higher power
That I pushed away.
My reasons
My experience
My cognitive process

Until I found home within you.
Quiet
Kind
And still

John H Davies
11th VI 2026

If you go away

If you go away
For quite a while
You’ll be surprised
When you return.

The small things
The smells
The trinkets
Those memories

You’d lost
Maybe purposefully
Maybe not
But they are there

And they welcome you
As if
They had sat there dormant
But breathing

My wonderful people

John H Davies
19 IV 2026