I am an ardent fan of my favourite pastime, which is shouting at the wireless. I have mostly my own teeth and can still get myself to the bathroom without too many accidents. I prefer my wine both copious and red.
I am an ardent fan of my favourite pastime, which is shouting at the wireless. I have mostly my own teeth and can still get myself to the bathroom without too many accidents. I prefer my wine both copious and red.
It’s a moment
when ice no longer cuts
but cradles
when each shiver is swallowed whole
and my body learns another lie.
I slip below
not into warmth
but into some distant memory of it
a trick of sensation
that holds me still
a paradox in liquid form.
It’s not comfort
more an absence of refusal
to sense
what once rejected my skin
now welcomes it
as if we are kin
knows what it’s like
to forget its e...
I bestride the multiverse. In two places at once and, I admit, no small measure of discomfort. One self in my sprawling Edwardian monstrosity overlooking the golf course in Rickmansworth. It’s an incongruous location, but there’s a peculiar tranquility in the mundanity of suburban England that lends itself to reflection. My other self, my most real resides In-Between, the liminal realm connecting ...
The Impaler stands a marvel
singular machine with purpose
absurdly deliberate
spikes gleam in perfect rows
polished to a serried sheen
promising precision and pain
mechanics hum strange elegance
gears meshing clockwork
coiled springs taut
heave on its lever
erupts deadly efficiencient
transform potential energy
into laxative moment
designed dark comedy
meticulously overthought
engineer mad sad...
I arrived at back at our meeting place right on time, though I could see Finn was already there. He looked, if anything, more dishevelled than usual. He was lurked in front of some food stalls, trying, and failing, to look inconspicuous. His expression hovered somewhere between victorious and sheepish, clearly, whatever he’d been up to on his part of the mission had worked out, but not without som...
Who am I
but echoes of a thousand voices
nailed into skin and sinew
a puzzle of purloined phrases
with half-remembered smiles
some warmth of hands
I don’t recall
but still feel
am I that laugh
blurted from a stranger
on a clattering winter train
I say “sorry”
shaped by a scolding
from a childhood teacher
this tilt of my head
might be mine
more likely
knowing me
I stole it
from someone
who once ...
Although I hadn’t said so to Finn, I knew that getting a meeting with the Lotaran Exhibition Director was going to be no simple matter. The Lotarans are not known for their openness and the man himself is reckoned to be as unapproachable as an angry bear in a locked safe. But I’ve always found bureaucracy to be like a particularly stubborn puzzle: exasperating, sure, but infinitely rewarding once ...
It’s hard to be subtle
when you dangle
from a streetlamp
swinging arc
interrupting life’s ordinary
passersby stare
not because they care
but because they see
gravity
while pigeons pause mid-coo
absurdity
try to look casual
as though hanging upside down
in a Market Square
is part of a fitness regime
or an art installation
But teenagers on a bikes
laugh so hard they crash
while shopping trolley w...
bakery warm
wraps a blanket
as walls and counters hum
and scent of yeast whispers
unheard dough soft
and alive
beckons focus
to still the mind
key clack rhythm
with prooving loaves
flour-dusted shelves
cradle quiet intention
as sun spills through glass
golden enfolding
while coffee steams
a private applause
and bread speaks
of crackling crusts
cooling on racks
a craft unfolding
fingers stretch...
Strange to wake
with an edge still sharp
taste morning ripe
another beginning
body soft
each ache a weight
whisper beyond groan
this scary place
so big so certain
this number
resting like feathers
unquiet in hand.
mountains still rise
rivers still flow
soft-edged weathering
and rain still falls
a little less certain
a little more and less free
just years planting
kisses on cheek of bone...
monsters under beds
often steal socks
but sometimes not
they really want dreams
that slip out of ears at midnight
and drift down like faint shadows
they gather fears
in hands that whisper
stitching them
into blankets of quiet
unfolding old sadnesses
into pale cold light
the small sorrows
left under pillows
or words we forgot to say
dust settling in darkness
they come
for fragments
they take ...