Latest Poem
- Winter, Near Emmaus
Stranger on the road, in rags or shroud,
Won’t you walk beside me, through the night?
The winter stars are hidden by the cloud
And now the winter moon withdraws her light.
Emmaus – look! – is like a crown of lamps
As if the stars have fallen to the plain,
Or else we see the brigand fires of camps
Where evil men weigh life with evil gain;
No life’s a silver coin to men like these,
I fear them as I fear the winter rain
And fear the moving shadows in the trees –
Now moonlight helps us glimpse our way again;
(The dead, perhaps, are playing hide and seek!)
Strange friend – if friend you are – why won’t you speak?First published online in Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
Gary Bills was born at Wordsley, near Stourbridge. He took his first degree at Durham University, where he studied English, and he has subsequently worked as a journalist. He is currently the fiction editor for Poetry on the Lake, and he recently gained his MA in Creative Writing at BCU, with distinction.
He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his post-modernist epic poem, Bredbeddle’s Well, which was published in Lothlorien in 2022. In 2024, he was also nominated for his sequence, Eight Sonnets for Compline.
Gary’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, Magma, HQ and Acumen, and he has had three full collections published: The Echo and the Breath (Peterloo Poets, 2001); The Ridiculous Nests of the Heart(bluechrome, 2003); and Laws for Honey (erbacce-press 2020). In 2005, he edited The Review of Contemporary Poetryfor bluechrome.
His work has been translated into German, Romanian and Italian. A U.S.-based indie publisher took on his first novel, A Letter for Alice in 2019, and a collection of stories, Bizarre Fables, in 2021. These were illustrated by his wife, Heather E. Geddes. His second novel, Sleep not my Wanton, came out in January 2022.
Other recent poems