Jack Kerouac’s scroll in The British Library – it’s the immense pressure of standing a beat apart, released through fine nicotine hands into dizzying thuds of keys and ribbon, that leaves a trail of latticework serifs as he drags them all behind...

      Whatever shall I do with this time to myself? There is too much and too little choice all at once So I content myself with ferreting the remains of the laundry basket. So many socks! I have turned the rogue ones outside out, mud sprinkling, dried...

      A tiny pot of Devon custard   I can still remember the smell in that bedroom, meaty, musky and sour like bad breath. I can feel the thick purple carpet pile tickling in between my toes, the cool smoothness of the sleek aubergine wardrobe...

      Black Holes & Other Inconsistencies after Edgar Martins There’s a thin blue line sprayed vertically on the wall and a film of grey dust on the floor. A square shadow of shade turns sand a darker yellow, and there’s a distant light in the...

  Pick of the Month May 2015   Another Canaan There was a wasteland and cold tire tracks in the skin of the sand. I forgot I couldn't breathe. In the distance was something I could crawl to; flat lands – these were like the lands of my childhood, a people...

      The Flying Monk Elmer built his labyrinth And dreamed his Daedalus escape. For years he gathered Feathers from kitchens, Down from pillows, Raided carrion, plucked dungheap birds, Poached rare flight And planned. He worked gravity on a lathe,...