Sound of Many Waters - new poems

 Colin Gibson, who has a few poems here, now has his own blog and is uploading poems to it. His poems are lyrical, thoughtful, soulful. You can find it here Sound of Many Waters

The Five Live!

The Five are live in Derbyshire next Sunday - September 16th 2018.

The event is taking place at 6 pm at Christ Church Parish Church, Litton. Derbyshire. SK17 8RA

Radiance Festival

On Saturday - May 26th - members of The Five will be reading at the Radiance Festival at St Matthew's Church, Church Hill, Walsall, UK. WS1 3DG


Radiance is described as a Christian Spirituality Fair. Admission is £5 for the day, running from 10am to 3.30pm.

Chris Warren, Colin Gibson and Simon Iredale, of The Five, are scheduled to read at 11.45am.


Chris Warren will also be leading a workshop on "poetry and prayer" during the day.

The Five first wrote and read together as students in 1977 and reconvened five years ago. Their latest anthology is Five Squared.

New anthology

There's now an anthology of new poems out by The Five, the group of poets who have contributed many of the poems on this site. In the past we've promoted live readings by the group. There are going to be more this year.

They first published together in the late 1970s and appeared with a band called Candle Factory, whose single album, Nightshift, now fetches largish sums on e-bay. They published a slim anthology then - and many years later, this is their second collection  after "five life-times of beach-combing, of spiritual highs and lows, of taking less-travelled paths".

The new book Five Squared, edited by Simon Peter Iredale, is available from lulu.com for £12.50 It has 25 poems. One or two have appeared here - but most have not.

The five are Max Butcher, Colin Gibson, Simon Peter Iredale, Tom Rudge and Chris Warren.

An appearance in Chesterfield

Four writers who have contributed new work to this site will be leading an evening of poetry on Sunday June 28th in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK.

It's at 6pm at the Central Methodist Church, 38 Saltergate, Chesterfield, S40 1UH. Admission is free.

Originally and many years ago known as The Five, Colin Gibson, Simon Iredale, Tom Rudge and Christopher Warren will be presenting some of their work, old and new.

Somerset Moths

Lured by the warmth of summer sun on tarmac,
Lingering long here beyond the fall of darkness:
Trapped between high honeysuckle hedges:
Caught by my hurrying headlights.

I never saw moths like this, a summer blizzard,
Each flashing into brightness just as it withers.
Leopard, tiger, ermine, gypsy, emperor
crackle upon my bumper.

What am I to them? First warmth and honeysuckle
and the comforting dark. Then a ton of metal
Mangling their world, a furious Abaddon,
hurling bright wings to oblivion.

I cannot stop. I am held upon this course
that smashes their fragility. I am forced
by fear for a broken child, to follow his fall
and hurry after him to hospital.

Colin Gibson
Copyright: By application

Last poem by this writer

Saimaa

I seek a lake
and in the lake an isle
and in the isle a pool
and in the pool a rock
and there
held and beheld in the still water
a seat of triple secrecy.

There like the sky
that gazes on the water
and like the waters
shining with the skies
I'll gaze and shine and share
reflected mysteries.

Colin Gibson
Copyright: by application

Last poem by this writer

Running along the beach

Fear binds me as I start to write
Fear after so long holding back
Fear that someone will read
and see what I've become
Fear that no-one will.


So let me write like running along a beach
that stretches to the limitless.
Your waves yelling upon her, shouting me on:
Your winds and clouds wrestling for the sky
and all Your stars are blazing.


And me running, shouting Your name,
Delirious and ridiculous, and wanting
Each breath, step, yell, stride, stretch,
to reach You
Like a demented lover
Like a prisoner in a last dash for freedom
Like a splinter burned in unconsuming fire.


Colin Gibson
Copyright: By application