The Sounds of Poetry - David Williams

A fun poem

This poem traces the rise and fall of the out-of-town superstore — once a place of bargains, announcements, and convenience, later a hollow centre that quietly replaced the very town it helped erase. Through tannoy voices, rolling baskets, and abandoned local shops, it charts how community life was absorbed, repackaged, and ultimately discarded.By the time the intercom speaks again, announcing closure, the irony is complete: the town is gone, the store is going, and there is nowhere left to shop.A poem about consumer culture, convenience, and the unintended cost of progress — told with dark humour and a very British shrug.

Norway is a poem shaped by memory and place, where landscape and feeling are inseparable. Moving through quiet villages, narrow streets, and still water, it captures a deeply personal vision of Norway — not as a destination, but as something held and returned to in the mind.With blossom, mist, mountains, and mirrored fjords, the poem reflects on how places become part of us, and how memory preserves their beauty long after the moment has passed.

A chilling metaphor of predation and disguise, The Kestrel Hovers examines emotional blindness, manipulation, and the masks worn by those who feed on others — asking the listener to question what appears gentle, and what waits beneath.

My mother once told me that when she was a child there was a story of the village woken in the night by terrible screams. She said it was a ghost story, and it was called The Tow Rows.I’ve used that memory as the starting point for this poem.A bleak and haunting tale of a ship lost in a gale, the cries that carried ashore, and the silence that answered them, The Tow Rows explores fear, inaction, and the weight of what is left behind when the sea is finished.

A gentle ghost story, where a storm, a whispering presence, and a frightened child lead to a warm, human ending. Or having fun with kids at bed time.

When I was young on a Sunday afternoon, our whole family would walk along the beach to West Runton, we would collect winkles and come home and my mum would cook them and we would have them for tea with bread and butte, picking them out with needles or pins, it was always a lovely family occasion

One day I sat gazing out the window at the lovely branches of the Willow in the garden. It inspired me to write this poem.

This poem grows from the images and emotions of offshore crab fishing from Sheringham in rough seas.Beneath the surface lies a deeper meaning: the chain as a symbol of addiction — the struggle of a person trying to break free from something to which they feel forever tied.The poem ends with the fishermen dancing on wet boards, driving themselves home and punching through the seas, only to succumb to the rising gale. The mustard cloth refers to the yellow oilskins raised as a distress signal, and the crack and flash mark the arrival of the lifeboat, coming to their rescue.