Spreading When Mr Andrews showed me how to prepare a sandwich. Like this, he said. And then I tried, myself. Got some butter on the end of the knife, not too much. So it could be managed easily. Smoothed it evenly over part of a slice of bread. Got some more. Mr Andrews took the […]
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Three Stories
Economics I stole Mrs. Gavinchy’s car. I didn’t know it was hers, I robbed it from the multiplex carpark because Harvey Slade bought scrap metal and I thought if I gave it him for free maybe he’d take me out for a drink or whatever. But when Harv saw the car he was all, I […]
Two poems
The Shipping Forecast I am sinking too far from the inch-high lighthouse sweeping Malin Head with its tiny beam. This boat is scuppered, to be terribly frank. It’s lit up by lightning just beyond the box grey of Banba’s Crown. Wild spray like eiderdown rat-a-tats the teak helm wheel as I straddle the extended bowsprit’s […]
Three poems
Goldfinch for Jack Thacker Soundbitesize memories belong not to goldfish but to us, who are probably not goldfish. Cultish devotion to culling one tiddly square of lichen. A view not to my liking: goldfinch – nugget-chicken, cocoa with notes of jam and custard, candied pine cone built out of a buzzard – says Buzz off, […]
Eight poems
Maximin When Maximin shouts at the Emperor Severus, almost in a breath, Look at me, look what I can do, he is gigantic, his body is taut but has no purpose than to flex and recover. Severus is content. It is his son Geta’s birthday. Look at me, Maximin shouts, look what I can do. […]
Three poems
I Have To Confess That Only Sometimes Am I With You after Michael Earl Craig It occurs to me I am like a houseplant. I turn a little in my chair to look out a different window. A rabbit has stepped out from behind a shrub; the rabbit presents himself to me. They say poetry […]
The Drawing Room
Betty looks into the tea leaves. She’s wearing thick woolen purple tights with a tweed skirt. Pip and Bobo, her Yorkshire Terriers sit at her feet. We’re on the low sofas beside the fireplace. ‘What can you see?’, I ask her, but the leaves aren’t clear. There’s a gilt mirror to our left that looks […]