Getting Somewhere We don’t admit to depending on the brakes too much. But the garage tells us we need to change the pads again. We don’t enjoy brinkmanship, but our new tyres have already started to lose their grip. We don’t want to crash, we’re...

      Broken English When I was younger, for a long time I assumed that being an immigrant, I could not fully understand or Enjoy English verse, wrote Elif Shafak, novelist, last Saturday In The Guardian. There would always be Something I would miss...

      Sainsburys, Chertsey. 3:30. Friday Our heads close, we walk the length of a hundred recounted steps, our time ghosts frequenting a town we have come to pace and slumber, maybe dance in. I watch the back of your head and the way the wind cradles...

      Carboot Every scratch from every needle is hidden inside these sleeves – the scars off inadvertent drops from when a certain personal hit was needed – carried around in square bags worn as badges accumulated on Saturdays browsing Eastern Bloc,...

      The day job gave me a recurring dream on a frozen lake circles of ice were cut using giant hacksaw blades. Telling them I couldn’t swim as they smeared oil onto my shaking body was ignored. See them struggling placing me under the water chanting...

      Boy and Stick In the old black-and-white photo he’s still up that tree in the park, a shape among branches, a kind of negative space, detectable only by mathematics and his pull on other objects. In shorts. Moustache of milk. Scabbed knees. Coins...

      A State of Being  Under blue shadows of a red cliff I dream the sky will collapse. * The moon is an eye that does not suffer the sun is an eye that does not blink though it burns in the haven of my skull. * There are signs I have ignored knowing...

      The Elixir It began with nectar weeping from your tear ducts. Your mother shone like a martyr. It dripped from your nostrils – the ambrose became mixed with the stink of the house. It oozed from your ears, hardened. Your father called you...

      Sign  I can visualise the street sign— its unfamiliar name— but not your face. Not really— flecks of shooting star shone in your hair then. I remember that but a friend tells me you are bald now. Standing on that corner: sage, bay leaf, baklava,...