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      Giraffes It’s the way the dark between stars is filled with light that may never reach us. It’s the way our local Running Man is accompanied by his imaginary friend who keeps up a lively conversation. It’s the way my one-year-old grandson looks at...

      Déjà Vu   Once more I'm caught on the sly hook of your voice and hauled out gasping into a toxic world. Lifetimes billow and vanish like haunted clouds: I race through the woods, but your word-arrows find me; I soar overhead, you shoot me...

      Doctrinal Shuffle In the nakedness of civic planning a few secular aims overwhelm whatever any god could have deemed the key components of human subsistence— none of us knew what was coming next, not being privy to the lofty paper-pushing that...

      PHEW! WHAT A SCORCHER Headlines regurgitate last year’s “hottest since whenever” claims, two-page spreads bulked out with photos of lolly-guzzling toddlers, sun-worshippers already reddened and some TikTok wannabe in a string bikini. Meanwhile,...

      One side of a conversation over breakfast The flowers, no they were petals, were suspended over my head. I think they were singing a quiet song to themselves. They were white, each one in its own space. They were stationary but fluttering. I was...

      Imaginarium ‘I am a smiling woman’ Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus And it came to me that stones, trees and water live in a circle trace their souls stain the landscape, it’s a luxury you can lead your life without choosing and yet determined to leave...

      Some Crows So little happens that I tell you everything twice. The crow, I swear, followed my eye behind the door, knew to leave me something delicate and silver. Another crow, a different one, I swear, took up with its beak some chant or other,...

      Purblind & Font in the odds ‘n’ ends drawer one might find what one is looking for amongst the biros and string purblind spectacles you might find anything half-remembered by the mind’s claw lemon rind what the hell was that for? there must...

      Walking the Ring Road A sprig of hawthorn brushes away gritty city miles – back to gran banishing me and may blossom from the house – Smell of death. Smell of death. I’m running back to the trees clouding the field edge, burrowing up from the...

      One hundred geraniums   No steampunk engine, no onyx dashboard, no timepiece whirring as the world unwinds… I ride a dry leaf to travel in time. Citrusy astringency in my palm hot-wires one hundred dead geraniums in my hippocampi, to blaze again...

      Clambake I had not heard of it the night its title was spelt out in tiles on the oujia board. The question lingered on the air like smoke from a blown-out candle, Is there anyone there?   My thighs clenched, dreading a reply. A pause then before...

      Postcard he squealed around bends drinking until he sideswiped the Castle Douglas sign his golf umbrella was a shield between gift shops and departure but it hooked at strange faces and hurt his arthritic hand he almost bought a travel-rug and...

      Unsaid We sit in the glare of the morning sun A mug of tea in our respective hands I perch at your side all pyjamas and messy hair I am 5 years old again but you are the one propped against pillows From the bed we can see the woods we walked and I...

      All Day Breakfast   Your bad hours fizz in a squirming glass, and as cheery as they had previously seemed you require the waitress to please change these flowers, they’re fake; this head, please ... this universe ... Hope the bellowing coffee can...

      An Englishman’s Right (1978) A bitter sky hung above, people pushed past, wanting to get home, on tenterhooks. Birmingham, home to division and Enoch Powell, prophesying ‘Rivers of blood.’ Racism ingrained, transfused via jokes told by Stand-Up...

      Dasheen  Tuesday: a mountain of rice, one roast potato, two pieces of fried fish with bones and skin softened through oil, draped in sour rings of pepper and onion, home made coleslaw, tea. The plate is piled high and hot before you even take off...

      Magic Will Snowball Once I get out of bed magic will snowball at breakneck pace My 0-60 a thing of beauty I step out of my body Transfixed Step back in Jump out of my head into my body An optimal state Hard for me to access But I’m stubborn Call...

      God Save the People After ‘Decentring Whiteness’ by Darius Simpson the saying goes Black Lives Matter the saying goes Eat the Rich the saying goes celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee  let’s talk about how every monarch between Elizabeth I and George III...