Phil Barnett has had a lifelong passion for the natural world. In particular for the area of countryside outside his front door in South Lancashire – “The Patch”, where he walks on most days. Phil finds beauty in the ordinary – wonder in the everyday. He expresses this through music, painting, photography and more recently writing prose and poetry.
birds knit my ribs together
birds knit my ribs together
wrapped the corpse in feathers
song embalming; mummifying
wrens sipped cuckoo spit
spat it to a thimble
stirred in berry and honeydew
dripped the tincture drip by drop
a woodpecker bored my skull
in trepanation
drummed a hole and wasps flew out
goldcrests’ needle calls put punctures
all along the kidney’s line
swallows’ flightlines skywrote my ill
when thrushes sang it out loud
a woodpigeon listened while
I told it secrets
laughed when I lied
Phil Barnett