Hello

      Low Heath Wake hearing driven rain and darkness. Little lights along the shore. People shuffle in corridors, doors clunk, beeps reveal patients’ oxygen, heat, blood-force. I dreamed a sickly landscape, my home above the harbour, low heath,...

      Sprout I confess I am an idiot who believes in luck and the mania of new projects. If you drive these up to the mountains for the weekend, they may grow a sprout, and you may be allowed a tinfoil hat and a bird familiar. Seek vortices in rural...

      Runes The water was everywhere but not our awareness of it. We only knew the ice -- the age of ice was when we lived our mammoth lives, sabre toothed towards extinction. At the onset of the great thaw we were reborn evolved, undergone mutation....

      Year of the Plague There have been plagues, before. There has been death, spreading like a blanket drawn across the face of the world. There will always be fear, of war, of famine, all of those abysmal things which are too big for us to picture,...

      Night Train Tall lights beam downwards blanking the night sky casting long sleeping shadows across the yard. Darkness edges the mainline.  A taxi, yellow light on, returns over the bridge. Slow, uncertain shunting starts up. Stops. Rain tries,...

      Cottage I turn around to see my mother on the roof, clinging to a chimney. How did she get there? She’s shouting down instructions: which apples to pick from the orchard behind me. And then, as if waking from a dream, she looks around in...

  Six Feather gashes cut the deepest because I can’t figure out their motives; this game of Russian roulette we play will kill me because you always load six cartridges. I think there is a wolf cub lost in this city, lost from his pack. My wrappers fall from my...

      Lady Mary Hamilton If you were to be wandering through the Kunstkamera in St Petersburg, last century, you’d likely have spotted a glass jar on a dusty shelf and inside it a head, pickle-floating in spirits. This belonged to Mary Hamilton. It was...

      The Journey in   We pass a shock of roofs, a builders’ yard, A squat clocktower, cranes, wide bird-filled parks, Unkempt back lawns and windows seen through trees. Graffiti flares from walls of darkened brick And at unmeasured intervals we...

      The Mishap The first barbecue of summer - the last, for Peter – had a decent turnout, uni pals and partners mostly, but the odd school hanger-on and semi-pitied colleague too. The first hour was a bit damp, naturally - politics, sport, the time...

      Sent from my iPhone, so please excuse brevity, spelling & punctuation Sent from my iPhone whilst dieting, so please excuse an 8-point-font Sent from my iPhone during a senior moment, so with all due respect Missy- excuse spelling &...

      The New Testament of Dog  Dog, elemental creature delving in puddles, fully formed in mud, this body earth, all love without mechanism, he is the murmur that nestles into these delightful sounds of apocalypse. Enemy fire turns off the crickets...

      Stars in Class Our teacher would give out stars – gold stars to the bright supernovas, silver for the hard-working planets, and none for the boy at the back a black hole that sucked in everything she threw at him and gave back nothing. The...

      Sonnet A body longing how long? to be there by 10am FedEx promise a plastic box like for recipes or receipts pouring like cake mix in the rain.     JT Welsch's books Orchids (Salt, 2010), Hell Creek Anthology (Sidekick, 2015), and Flora...

    Chew Toy My body, my stomach, my chest is a ball A dog runs after it and Occasionally gives it a little chew It’s that lurching feeling That sinking A mix of fluttery anxious butterflies And deep sorrow Heart races and mind is overactive All you want to...

      The News is in The news is in. Grey fears can go away now. These flames are black and green, the colours of disease. It isn’t true! But only because I keep my eyes closed. If I open them, the wall offers an Arctic ferment of blues, the ceiling is...