Hello

      The Road to Witcombe Water As she passed the white hemlock weeds that crowded the verges beneath the wires from the Old Exchange, my mother left her footprints remembered by the gravel, dusty tracks by the lichgate, fifty years by the weathered,...

      Sweeping out the Store Before the finality of his broom and the open door he    pauses to study the trails toing and froing along the dusty sidewalk some crossing this threshold to buy supplies a pair or two don’t stop head on past to the saloon...

      The Shed Key has a Passive Voice The shed key was lost. The little one tells me it was sucked down a super massive black hole the middle one hopes we will find it by clawing through cat shit the biggest one emits a sound akin to the thump of a...

      Cold Case Their front door. What was the colour? Blue? Green? No, some things they could agree so it must have been white, no doubt a beaten white, needing a repaint. Because, after all this time, it’s the truth he wants, a nailing of fault, he...

      The printer needs paper We think we know what it means when this message appears, but do we really. Dutifully we search out the half-used packet, refill the over-complicated tray mechanism and carry on printing. But, in what seems like so short a...

      The iron moon, looks differently under hospital windows shakes down completely sometimes, touches the eye of the rich drunk- squatting in the alleyway for a piss It is not romantic, no. Does not bring knees to pavement- does not heal broken skin....

      The Last Train Pulls Away That day, my mother wore her rose-print and wandered from room to room in acres of blossom. She heard a thin, far loophole in the wind sweeter than new-mown hay. Her face was lit. Out of nowhere my father come back from...

       Their Return The people who lived here before, we slowly abolish them by buying beaming new fridges, washer dryers, cookers with fan ovens that actually work and two year warranties, more sofas for the cat to do Tai Chi on. Yet the rooms are...

      Visual Impairment for Rowan when you trace her lines brittle teeth cheek-bones you’ll remember your mother’s face know her by her footsteps when there is cacophony speak and sounds will become ordered new ride the water row and pull until you are ...

      The Watchmaker stomach stilted, harbour bound, sweet dreams, love – oh, these rain clouds swirl like tea leaves in an ink-stained sky hush now, a golden-toned man hums time’s tune like notes to a song like beats to a heart whilst time scatters its...

      Flowers and Baguettes Her shopping trolley thought she had the kind of life where flowers and baguettes would feature regularly. She was just shopping for detergent and descaler. She wanted to live up to this imagined life, even sometimes bought...

      Assortment But he watched me eat the chocolate, One, two, three, four, cordial lime, he Sat while I settled on this bridal pebble, and then on the monopoly hat filled with chew, He was only a boy, who could unmould my thoughts just by waiting to...

      LAUREL She keeps a vigil by lake Kournas each evening when the sun and moon are on an even keel, before their alignment shifts and tilts one upwards and the other into the arid ground. She lights a candle and recalls the chase as the flame quivers...

      High July A sunset walk in the high blue, one of those days that stretches so far you can’t believe the morning belongs to the afternoon, or that either could ever become a night. I would have been here sooner but I was busy cleaning up the mess...

      Ian in the Student House Palmer Park Avenue, Reading, c.2003 I remember this entrance hall, long and painted darkly. There’s a cat, too, somewhere amongst the bins or out in the park across the road. The view from the bay window is not much...

      Happen Yesterday the sea was at our shoulder but we couldn’t see it. Long after the fog had drifted over us Wolf Rock Lighthouse was still reminding us in its old fashioned, diaphragmatic way to take care of sudden precipices and overhangs, as...