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      Notes from nature on how to survive this: 1. Learn crypsis and mimesis be a gecko or a mossy frog 2. Method actors sway like dead-leaf mantises on branches 3. Spikes are effective, mollusc shells cumbersome 4. Warning! sea urchins maim and poison...

      Out of the Ash We tore it all down just to watch it burn, standing in that alley of forgotten refuse. No one wanted it, no one needed it, so boombox and cigarettes, bottles and pipes, we ran riot with the fire, unrestrained screams and smoke...

      Poem as Instruction for How to Respond to an Insult First, know it. Really inspect every word like a woodsman would hold a finch upside down, and blow on the soft feathers to reveal its sex (even then, it's fifty fifty). Don't be too quick to bat...

      Cyclamen I woke to workers with blades along the verge, yellow-jacketed to signify contracted rights to hack and scythe died-back bracken and living saplings to a brown shrivel. What a story to be part of, forlorn in the telling of nature...

      Eve’s Bite In the beginning of the end she bit the thing she wasn’t meant to bite. Apple stuck in her throat, one bite taken, then swallowed whole. Seeds wait in stomach for sprout, roots climb through veins, branch pushes through her mouth. White...

      To my Ovaries My cahoonas. My muscular daisies. Potent white olives. You make me sick. My mute twins on tricycles. Femme fatales. Relay racers. Nightmares wished upon stars. In my brain you’re pendula on speed. My climax on the horror film screen....

      Old Age What is not to love when you draw back curtains and taste clouds in their newness and innocence or watch the sky raise its brass trumpet in a call to gratitude. What is not to love about the air on your skin, each breath a new miracle or...

      The Perseids at Bannau Brycheiniog At my feet the window sprawls a view of kneaded land, craggy baked by the hand of the gods, dusted green with short bit grass. A sheep walks by along the grey faded road, pitted with age, worn tired with wear....

      In Memory of Anne It hasn’t been this bright all year – the moon’s white scalp, spot-lit, a head turned away from a thing the rest of us fear: unearthly dark and its stars – the small unfindable glass in a vast unwalkable carpet. Night is where...

      Still Life Though I am not a painter this is to be a portrait of my parents and my sister. You don’t have a sister. This is my mother speaking, someone I did once have. I picture my sister in the middle, Dad shuffling along to make her some space....

      The small press publisher You too I guess have studied the surviving starlings as they swoop and whistle by the snack trailer at Moorfoot glinting for crumbs of flaky pastry like a glimpsed field of dandelions and everything turns holy - you...

      Scavengers I loved the tales Luke told me of starving writers, and the sacrifices they made following their hearts. Philip K Dick eating dog food. Bukowski’s candy bars. A forgotten Fitzgerald writing How are you? postcards to himself in the...

      Aquamarine My compass – its needle set with a sliver of blue stone – spins and spins. Breath mists my snow goggles. I wipe them endlessly. Even in these thick seal-skin mitts my hands are frozen. I have been no place as still as this. As white....

      The long arc I seek justice and you hold a seashell to your ear hear oceans whispering limitless sssshhh history heaps sheering waves shattering across reefs sweeping shallow bays rearing breakers pound shelving beaches scatter shells with...

      Something Missing He cuts. I lie still, teach myself to dream of St David’s Bay, seaweed strewn on incoming tides, surfers slice big waves in half. He butchers with hammer, saw. No nightmares, though he says it’s possible-you could wake in the...