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      Messages, Signs, Codes This morning – Blackstar, Bowie, those jazz swan songs sputtering from the CD player, wild trumpets that convulse through negative space. Funny, coincidences like that; awoke to a bonewrong feeling, my senses pricked like...

      skin the pool holds my face my breath ripples the water creases my skin settles still again my skin water skin sky skin all that holds us in     Jane Pearn's poems and short stories have appeared in several print and online magazines....

      Miss Betina Wauchope Disappears From the 1927 painting ‘Interior: Orange Blind’ by FCB Cadell. The single crimson rose she wears in her lapel, to test his imperfections, draws him into detail; pointing a thinner brush at her wintery cheeks, the...

      Stop When the half-light drops below the horizon the birth of darkness comes and I can see myself in the mirror of the moon madness shining in the moonlight The birdsong gone The hedges silent The world edges to a place of no return and I’m trying...

      How to master the air walk dance craze My mother died seven years ago, but last night she had a message for me. The mechanics are irrelevant, what she gave stays with me: the word: dancing. It makes sense, I always pictured her released back into...

      Rosary  peas Girls under the tree, one with hands clasped as in worship, the others picking the scarlet fallen seeds, so they could string them, those necklace beads. They’ve played this game since sun-up, and even now, all through this windswept...

      Outsider What is the ancient curse they know that you don’t Moving along their mouth-lines and their eyebrows Lowering their lids, tensing their nods or shrugs No spell has locked their lips but they are silent Watching you try, watching you fall...

      Short-lived After his baby son died he strapped a tumble dryer to his back and ran the roads around the village. Stocky, shaved head, blue shorts and vest, white socks in black Nike trainers. Transformed into Tumble Dryer Man he raised thousands...

      Everything Changed except our Way of Thinking  I’m always thinking about how I can find more human beings. Or how I can have a better relationship with a human being.     Why you are you.     And I am I.     And why that should be a problem. It...

      Web Sorry, but I’ve stopped cleaning the windows. Or I guess I’m not cleaning that one pane of the window that looks in over the living room. I’m leaving it for the spider with the round body like a peanut and the striped legs who has made her web...

      Wildflowers No one has ever told me to Go back to where you came from Perhaps it’s because I look like I’m just passing through They know I know I don’t look like I belong here I fall into the category of guest The perpetual rambler A forever...

      Muckle Flugga   Unmoored on an ocean of heather no wind to pluck the strings of the aeolian harp Policed by the unsettling glare of nesting great skuas we tread the narrow path The boardwalk rises and falls under a sky empty and scoured of song To...

      Morning Beach in Gopalpur Those night boats are back. Fishermen string their nets Counting fresh catch. The fish stink. Flies buzz around crabs. They are knocking hammer on wood. I want to take a few steps more To see what’s going on – Find them...

      Reflex That was the time you caught the mumps and I was half afraid I’d catch it too. Or it was measles and it was me who had it, lying in bed for days reading the bible – children’s version, illustrated – where the devil was all red and had pig’s...

      Prevention Science Walking home from the lecture on Frankenstein through the November mizzle, small breaths of exhaust sighing in the twilight headlights, particles of wet air commingling. When I look into the branches of the evergreens I can...

    Octopus I am one Like short of being beautiful. Five hundred more Followers, I’m away to fight culture wars. I Block two for lies Quora does not verify. Counter-factuals are ok, there’s simmering wastelands to make out of vague, but someone sent a shroom...