It was a dark night. The rain whipped against black windows. Waves as tall as trees…
Archives for 2014
The River You Swim In
When the winter struck, everything and the rivers froze. The trickles stagnated then stuck. The rain floated, stayed rain…
The Room
The effects aren’t immediate. The unnerving warmth is spreading from my throat to my stomach, acting as a fuse, burning slowly and transforming my mind into a waiting room. My eyes close as I concentrate on the sensations fighting for control of my body; everything is slightly altered and increasingly unfamiliar. I still haven’t moved. […]
The Rising Sun
In the truck, he started the engine and waited for the heaters to kick in. Snow had fallen and frozen in his absence. As he watched, it began to flow in thin rivulets down the windscreen. He swallowed his coffee, shoved the gearstick and drew out of the parking lot. It was Christmas Eve. He […]
Monkey on a Rope
1964, Arden Creek, Nevada. I was christened ‘Gimmick’ and raised in a firehouse. They trained me every morning and evening…
Greasy Spoon
There she is, my Russian Doll, tearing up a baguette like it’s something her mother baked. She sits on the chrome stool with her legs dangling down – does she know what she’s doing to me? With her brown bob, messed up from the wind outside, from the ancient winds in Siberia. I want to […]
Double Act
He’s pacing back and forth, or trying to. The little dressing room is crowded with folding chairs and dusty flyers and a mirror with bright bulbs that burn his elbows. When he sits, the room feels too full. So he stands. And paces. It takes six steps and four breaths to cross the length of […]
2 poems
Buzz Cut The reeds cloud the pond, crowded together in judgement; the jetty is wet with sodden leaves. It’s one of those days, shifting a bulk that knuckles itself into the nodules of the spine, a grey cesspit, a melting chessboard whose rooks have peppered the fields with pockmarks. Over the mist, a meadow is […]
2 poems
Departure Daybreak’s listless glow spelt out your face a million wan grey words that meant “goodbye”. Damp lashes brushing boyish cheeks. It was five in the morning. Slowly I got on the bus my aching eyes reeling past triptychs of windows that posed you in stop-frame. The engine sobbed and moaned. Already we were separate. […]
Three Wooden Tables
When I imagined what Dr. Jenners and Dr. Jenners’ home looked like, I definitely didn’t imagine it with a red door, or indeed for there to be little gnomes lining the front garden. And I certainly didn’t expect the gnomes to be the kind that were chipped, or the kind that wore peeling, fading paint. […]