Hello

      Salvatrix Mundi It’s hard to be Jesus with the housework to do and the world to care for all on her own. She’s stopped going to bed. Once the ironing’s done she'll nod off in her chair. She wakes up about four alert for earthquakes or floods. She...

      Sometimes, a Man Could Cry Sometimes, I just hold my head, clasping its wreck of metal. It is just enough to keep the spine and chest upright, just enough to wire the jaw into a fixed smile and fuse and screw up bones; just enough to keep up. The...

      Roses Wielding secateurs on Saturday I hack at roses, urging the blackspot to be gone and setting the straggling thorns in check. My mind turns to you and how I trained you to eat the undergrowth, to chew meadowsweet, parade mushrooms like...

      Surge The day approaches from round the corner, narcissus insinuate themselves into the soil, a jay rises high, too pink and beautiful to be contained. Beginning of buds sing at the top of the flame bush zinging like lemon zest on a tired tongue....

      Allotment Service Metal in the sky: ash-cold afternoon The big fork: foot on its shoulder Heavy handed: spearing the heap Slip through tangle: the prongs ring And layers gape: yellowing stalk-work Developing compost: the heat rises Vapours...

    Change The general acceptance of the bicycle came suddenly. People that have helped me on numerous occasions who I’ll never meet: a counsellor, an academic mentor who is also the former. What does it mean to take charge of your mental health? And why for...

      A14 shifting left to right     slow lane middle lane back to slow lane     indicator tick-tick-tick indicator off     rearview articulated truck coming up fast on inside     grey van moves right     moves left again     silver sun glaring off wet...

      Spaghetti in the road I saw a piece of spaghetti in the road, not a fork. That stringy pasta piece didn’t have two choices: a ‘this way or that’, nor an ‘L and R’. It went all ways to show me that time is tangled, tangled as a pocket headphone...

      Mer de Ballade I’ve been keeping a jar of seawater on my desk. There’s a tragedy in keeping a wild thing captive. In the morning, I see the salt-rim footsteps Of a retreating tide, frozen like a mausoleum. Our bodies are two thirds water. The...

      That’s best to try In the magic mirror of competition, you’ll never win, best not to try. You have that loose neck, goosey-goosey, and those crow’s feet around your eyes. With their ebony-haired youth and rosy-lipped beauty, step-daughters are the...

      halfmens namaqualand the halfmens feeds off rare fog that travels inland from the coast, and struggles to seed. she is my sentry to the afterlife: the hills here look dead but they burn with grievances and blooms; they paint their poisons daily....

      Aum Desire shudders like a yawn to my surface, a deep song rising for air – a sound at the centre of myself. Sometimes I can feel it in my fingertips. Other times a colony of nights confounds me and my heart stammers. Without sound my body is just...

      THE PARABLE OF THE IMMIGRANT The mirror lies. You cannot touch the reflection you see. You smash the mirror, yet the reflection votes remain on your mind. In the parable of the immigrant, the hummingbird wanders into a car park & finds the...

      How to Walk to the Sea Follow the footpath past the farm house dodging mud and deeper ruts Pass through the bent and rusted gate the ford choked by balsam and reeds At the first stile look up to the horizon vast grey sea, the buzzard. Ignore the...

      Control Imagine a box, body-sized and you’re inside. You can stand. Cramped. Just. That’s where I lived and had to lug the thing around with me everywhere I went. Imagine having a voice torn out as the words exit. Ideas choke, when there’s too...

      My Mother Welcomes me to the Care Home Come and live, we'll find you a house, you'll have an old time and be loved. You can just sit there, don't lick a finger, there's ups and there's dugs but we've got to go nowhere. They take us in so we can...

      Disabled Person’s Travel Card Council, council, let me on the bus That you let me on last week. Oh no Ms Watt, you can’t go on the bus For we don’t know where you live. So off I went to get proof of address And I thought I’d sorted out the mess...

      Testing times My bones scold-heavy, heartsick I drag my eyes anywhere - to the funeral wax of lilies, to the boastful damselflies confident in their beauty. I refuse to look at, to acknowledge, that Chair, waiting to test. Solid. I won't watch the...

      A movement of flutes I'm rushing. the beer shops all close here at 10pm sharp (that’s unless you're already in them). I've been eating dinner at my parents’ tonight – with my brother and sister and both of their wives. now it's 9:45, and I've made...