by Helen Ivory | Jan 9, 2013 | Prose & Poetry
Eduardo’s In a restaurant made from the thin arms of a tree embracing white-washed walls, I eat strips of duck and strands of almond prepared by a stooped Belgian gentleman. A wall of glass separates me from him, and within this wall swim miniature...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 8, 2013 | Prose & Poetry
Legacies My father died and my mother, Made tea. We ate Dundee cake, And sliced a life, Into jobs and hobbies, While the minister took notes, And declined sugar lumps. We invented a man, Recognisable only to strangers. Loving father,...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 7, 2013 | Prose & Poetry
The World of “Absolutely” – and Other Clichés In the surprisingly hermetic world of Anglophone communication, original language is as rare as a horned toad in the Antarctic. Ralph Nader once observed that clichés stop people from thinking. Not...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 5, 2013 | 12 days 2012
If I’d been Santa Claus If I’d been Santa Claus I wouldn’t have lived in a semi in a place in North Yorkshire; I’d have set sail from my fur-lined igloo once a year over the whole sleeping world. I’d have grown a wonderful beard, slopped about in...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 4, 2013 | 12 days 2012
from Siula Grande White night 1 The forecast is for newer snowfalls. For another fading face, another forest to be erased with transparent ink from the landscape and then forgotten. The last thing you would want is to freeze thirty thousand...
