The Film-maker and the Poet after ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ (1946) The film-maker begins at the rim of space where he hurls constellations through Shakespeare and war; from a place where he condemns a man to unrequited death. His screen fills...

    daphne & moonlight daphne on the bonnet of the car her father stole off with your head daphne in a black lake moonlight plays inside me in the wrong register in the rearview my legs below her legs above the moon is white i slice peaches with magic...

      Towards A Dennis O’Driscoll Re-write of A Cesare Pavese Poem   Stupid takes after you, its smirk the one you wear while confidently doing whatever it is you do worst. You wouldn’t recognise stupid if it superglued your eyes open, threw a bucket of...

      Summer in the 1990s Sunset. Mid-July with a cloudless blue sky electric pink and flared with gold The window frame of the caravan digs into my elbows I lean out further My best friend squashed against me Side by side Watching our dads sitting in...

  Mother and Daughter  (after the 2013 photograph by Gregory Crewdson) When your mother walks barefoot to your house, you welcome her, the February morning, pine-scented freeze that follows like a phantom through the door. A single set of tracks print snow into...

      Post-operative It would be a while before he touched alcohol or felt in any way frisky, he said. The stitches were too new. She understood. He asked her to look under the dressing. There was a little oozing from his new zip. It was bloodless....

  Aposiopesis I see you waving from behind the fence I am trying it hurts clouds wait and move over fields swallows distracted by the burr of an aero plane resting elbows the wrinkled hands of the mower blather into action the company though assorted shows care...

  White Goods As I came down the stairs, the kitchen came upon me, buzzed through my teeth and elbows. The twin tub having a seizure, a St Vitus’ thrumming twist and shout. The shepherd’s crook of the hose clipped to the side of the sink snake-thrashed in...

      Singing With Elvis The Rediffusion is playing Elvis. I am sitting in our dining-room, not sure if we ever called it that. There is a yearning in the young Elvis hitting me like a wet clout. We bond, he is a long-lost brother, singing, ‘Are You...