ORBIS

My poems used to be published regularly (13 times in all) in ORBIS magazine. I saw my first copy of this publication back in 1988. Then, it was edited in Nuneaton by the amazing Mike Shields. Later editions came from Jarrow. As well as running ORBIS, Mike organised and judged an annual Rhyme International Competition and worked full-time as a technical translator. He believed fervently that science and the arts should not be separate. I met him around 1990 when I was Writer-in-Residence for Stirling District and invited him to the Central Library there to talk about (and sell) ORBIS - and read some of his own poems.

One of my poems which he published was YEAR'S END. It first appeared in issue 100, in 1996. I was flattered indeed when he republished the poem in 2000, in a special edition containing what Mike regarded as the best poems he'd published in 30 years of running the magazine.

As YEAR'S END seems right for the end of the year, I've added it below...

Give me any day in summer, and not
the year's bleak midnight.The radio tells
me we are older, have less time to share.
How I need you, and how I fear the bells.

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