Spectator poems
From the magazine

January

Paul Deaton
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 03 Jan 2026
issue 03 January 2026

You go here and go there, but also stand still,

return to the same spots: the bench on the hill

in Victoria Park, above the plane trees that veil

through winter branches the city’s spill,

platform seven, same-time Tuesdays, Temple Meads

gloomy and Cardiff central gleeful in sun, 

a table in the café waits, routinely

where you sit, before work, as you’ve always done.

You are running too, when you can, through early dark, 

sun lifting lazily over Ashton Court’s tree-lined hill,

cross-country reps. Wednesdays, in Manor Woods Park, 

this New Year’s world breathes cautious, centred, still, 

those night walks home; Orion, seems the spindle, 

that turns time through January’s long chill.