The Fringe For days, weeks, I’d longed quite hard for silence, as the weighted ache of noise loured. Then, Sunday morning, three o’clock, humid morning-night, the window open, there came a silence fringed with scents (our lane half-in, half-out of...

      The brief invisibility of fathers I do not draw but here I do. Heavy looping lines. That scar of road. Weeds through the stones. The olive tree, persisting. Wild fennel, and him bent over it. The way that he inhales the leaves. Pours rice like...

      We Are Alike We are alike, you and me. We are alike. You die of love, I die of love. You die without love, I die without love. We live to love, We live without love, We live until we die And then You must die alone, I must die alone. You and me,...

      The Nearly Times Once, when a group of horses bolted and reared, eyes white, legs flailing, trampling whatever was under their hooves. Once, wheeling too fast on a bike down Richmond Hill, tumbling off. Stilled on the tarmac, a human speed bump....

      Every Girl's Dream White egg dress black shoe suit doughnut sugary ring thrown flinty dandruff and white rice copy and pasted vows wedding receptionists are only here for the liquor vacancy signs is their twin eyes a head dress of heaven? A...

      Conspiracy theorists As they conspire, I agonise: it’s a glass door sudden at full pelt and that sickness as the wind escapes.     Peter Bickerton is a writer, scientist and resident poet for Thought For Food. Peter’s poetry has featured...

      Sunday Before the Hurricane The sky looks wary. The trees confer in muffled rustlings. I should start my generator, make sure it’s willing to cough enough power to support me through a rush of wind and rain. Hardy knew about wind and rain, his...