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Gill Macdonald
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the poet
Gill Macdonald has enjoyed a diverse and wide-ranging career. Selling shoes, cleaning houses, painting murals, then on to film editing: first for documentaries, then commercials, then feature films – the most famous of which was Kubrick's The Shining, which Gill helped edit when the editor was taken ill. Poetry has long been a love of hers, so she was thrilled to have her poem Beech Wood longlisted in The Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition in 2024. More recently, she was a 2025 runner-up in the Ver Poets Ten-liners Competition. Gill's currently at work on a pamphlet, with her sights set on her debut collection.
the poems
Physog
I’ve missed your fine and lovely
fun and frubtious fickle fulsome
pretty witty smooth and hairy
downright scary wrinkly wise
and dutiful beautiful ugly smugly
pimpled dimpled weird and wonderful mugs
your fizzogs boat races and faces
I’ve missed smiling blushing blanking frowning
kissing scowling grinning and growling
lips lined and luscious meaty and peachy
rose red eat me or taut as twine
pursed and rehearsed pining and prissy
smiley wily Botoxed and refined
And eyes glittery glassy angry and arty
doe eyes duck eyes don’t give a f*ck eyes
eyes that are troubled and muddy as puddles
or shiny as stars translucent as bubbles
jeepers creepers beady little peepers
curious little sneakers sleepy and sly
And noses shaped like hoses pink as roses
fat as toeses honkers conks snubbed and sniffy
proud as a prow haughty and whiffy
hawkish shiny aquiline and fine
or toffee nosed and up in the air
and sprouting hairs like nobody cares
And lugholes shell likes neatly curled
or fearsome flappers proudly unfurled
ears all two of them like satellite dishes
filtering sounds and words and wishes
Faces on screens we’re all there to be seen
but a screen cannot kiss or hug or touch
like the skin we’re in that we love so much
More mobile than any phone more
expressive and impressive than any
Facebook Twitter or Instagram post
influencer or virtual host
that connection that spark in your eyes
it’s life it’s living it’s being alive
Real faces like weather are changeable
unrearrangeable as infinite as stars
in variety and form despite fashion
and fakery they defy the norm
fickle fantastic flawless warts an all
nothing is as marvellous as you
and I've missed you oh I have and I do
Ask the Sky
Now I know one or two random things
like the age of a turtle by counting its rings
I know how to chase the wind with a kite
and that hush when snow falls like magic in the night
I know the sweet smell of a new baby’s head
and the lazy warmth of a rumpled bed I know
jazz and Jacuzzis how to grow jasmine make smoothies
but when it comes to the how the what and the why
you might as well ask the birds and the sky
for if life is a story written in sand
to be swept away by an invisible hand
and love a rainbow made from wishes and sighs
don’t ask me how many tears we must cry
to keep it blazing – ask the sky
I know quantum entanglement is not a form of strife
and that 23 genomes make up the book of life
I know about men with moon in their eyes
warm hands cold hearts and kisses and lies
I know the futility of hate and greed
and the shattered lives of the helpless in need
but if you’re looking for answers the how the what the why
don’t ask me ask the birds ask the trees ask the sky
I know about kindness and love you can’t fake
friendship wine and laughter and making mistakes
music and dancing sunshine and romancing
Karma charisma and curry and cake
I know the silent swoop of the barn owl’s ghostly wings
all these and so many many diverse things
but when it comes to the how the what and the why
ask the birds ask the trees ask the sky not I
Beech Wood
There’s only so much you can fit into
the cabinet of days and navigating
work traffic unforeseen delays time
at last for a walk in the woods
the whisper of winter
is already in the air but summer still
has unfinished business that final
dazzling display the russet red yellow
and pink colours of decay
who but a tree could
make dying so beautiful and rustling
through the fallen leaves you leave the
path find yourself drawn into a small
wood a canopy of golden browns
branches like crowns
blotting out cloud
and crowd and soft underfoot living
earth not tarmac the dog snuffling
like a truffle hunter in the leaf litter
and as if the trees have taken you by
the hand all those
beehive thoughts melt
away just the silence the in and out
breathe the tall grey trees their roots
and rhythms and mellowing leaves
and you’re off the lead at last
Publishing credits
All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb
Beech Wood, as I mention in the bio, was longlisted in the 2024 National Poetry Society competition out of 21,736 entries.