Something Sometimes Waking up I remember Exactly nothing Forget who And what I am, Forget why And when I look out the window See a blue sky A few clouds Go about doing Little of much And it's good Great even But slowly Memory Starts to crawl over...

      Gethsemane You tell me that the Vicar had said that God wanted your child for his garden, as I sit making careful notes in your wife’s chair. I always sit in the chair of the deceased like a macabre party game, though the music never stops for me....

      New English Phrasebook My psychiatrist suffers from low self-esteem. I only cut my forearms on Saturdays. I have no friends, just followers. We offer a mindfulness approach to social status readjustment. Your kiss tastes of micro-plastics. We have...

      First Proving A puffball lump of dough kneaded warm like flesh swells in the bowl, drugs our lungs with yeast, pops little bubbles to keep us hooked promises a feast of crust parcelling a whiteness that fluffs against our tongues, then trails a...

      Blue We roll up our trousers and wade into the city river, down a sloping bank of cool mud which soothes our cracked feet, the water now up to our waists, now over our heads, down into a valley of silt like the hull of a giant wrecked boat...

      Nativity Play Wattle Park Primary School, 1969 I’m a koala in the play. I get to hide inside the papier mâché koala head Mum made. My ears are cotton wool. In here, it’s hot and smells of glue and newsprint. Eyes peek through two holes, the rest...

      To the Occupier I have been leaving ghosts in every house for six years, which makes six houses – seven if you count my temporary tenancy in your affection. Nine houses if you count the ones I lived in where I had no right to do so. Arguably...

      Fullwoods End (Roseville, West Midlands) Subversion of a name: you may be led to picture foxglove strand and windmill sail. The proper truth’s one more ‘Dunroamin’ vale where, way ahead of snow, the trees play dead. A no-place, linking Bilston’s...

      The Remote Controlled Car A prized possession of a toy-starved childhood: one of the first remote controlled cars, chrome still gleaming, Dan Dare curves, tucked up in time-capsule coffin from the 1950's. It appeared by accident, landing from...