On Saturday the 18th of April last year, a grey-and-black dress with black zig-zag appliqué, worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in the movie Gone with the Wind, was sold at auction in Beverley Hills for $137,000. Scarlett is first seen in the dress when she meets Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) outside her store, […]
After Vacationing at the Beach
Hand me the map, you say as you reach for the glove compartment. Construction, and we take a detour home. And because I am too slow for your patience, you push my palm back. What you don’t know: I will break our engagement. How you left your dating profile logged on before bed, as if […]
Swansea, 2015
The friggin’ gabba’s going dubbadubbadubbadubbadubba and the whole front room’s jumping, I really should reclaim my decks; this is not the vibe. ‘Right boy, listen, this is it so far. Yew listening?’ ‘Yup,’ he shouts. ‘Right, listen; In this town of crescent moon day breaks too soon casts shadows too sharp for my memory She […]
The Thickness of Dust
It was a strange room, hung with tapestries no one knew the meaning of, symbols, pictograms of all sorts. The colour red figured prominently. Music played quietly in the background, incongruous music, slightly manic, but which no one was listening to anyway. It was there to carry the dips in conversation, of which there happened […]
Colette Went Quiet
Colette called the day I moved into my apartment, just as I had finished wiping down the last of the kitchen cupboards. The phone startled me when it buzzed awake. I had already spoken to my mother and knew it could not be her. ‘Hullo stranger,’ she said, her voice carefully light. ‘Colette,’ I said. […]
It Hasn’t Started Yet
05:16. He wakes abnormally. There’s no light. His name is Martin Purchance. There is light: a green glow from his alarm-clock. It announces a time: 5:16. He doesn’t need to wake yet. Not until 7:00. 06:55. Why has he woken now? One reason: the article deadline, today at 10:00. He thinks about it. The piece […]
Disco Feeling-kin
Nina woke to find him half on top of her, his heavy arm all that was keeping her from falling out of bed. There was a fleck of spittle vibrating on his lip, his face cracked into the pillow like a child’s. She was breathing through her mouth. His pores exuded the fermented sweet and […]
What About India?
At the start of the work day, Marsha felt fine. Perky in fact, coffee pushed aside, eyes on screen, fingers on keyboard. She’d found a bug and posted a problem report, priority 2 in her opinion. A chat box from Randy, the senior development engineer, appeared. – hi marsha priority 3 not a functional problem […]
The Twice Drowned Woman
He watched from an upstairs window as she entered the water. It was one of the few not boarded up, this side beyond reach of even the most competent stone-thrower. The room itself was empty these days, save the rocking chair, where on occasion he’d observe the cycle of the Atlantic as it pitched and […]
Dummy
All the way from his house in the hills down through the river valley, Richard hacked and pointed his directions while beside him I listened and got us where we wanted to be. The streetlights were off but some passing cars had their headlamps on. Just south of town where the river widens and skinny […]
Tuathal (Counter-Clockwise)
Cuirim eochair i bpoll an téitheora agus casaim an chomhla ar tuathal — siar, siar, go dtí go gcloisim sileadh an uisce ag glugarnach as i mbraonta tiubha, an t-aer a bhí srianta scaoilte arís. Le clic and trice-tic, filleann cuisle an phíopa, ag tarraingt teas ar ais trí córas soithíoch an tí, trí fhéitheacha […]
Five Poems
San Pellegrino I sit here facing a glass of water. I have a family: a son, baby daughter. Life’s harder. Harder, and sadder. My father has stage IV lung cancer. He’s dying, only faster. Fall, and he might meet his maker by winter. O let this cup pass, my Father. I sit here facing a […]
She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea*: Meditations on Dunoon’s Victorian Pier
1 I am bound, rooted, salt-stung, tree-limbed, iron bolted. I live with my memories – echoes of footsteps arriving, departing; ghost boats at my thighs. Every timber part of me swims with zooplankton. My only neighbour is my reflection. The sky is sailing around me. Fenders of rock elm protect me. My mouth is a […]
A Mariner
You were a mariner. I lived by the water. You struck new sand for your master and led me to the land where night tulips grow. With your fish-hook you gouged out my throat and surged through me under inky-green skies. You bound me to these tenebrous sands and with ease set your sail for […]
Three Poems
Young Poets In the minx browns of Great Eastern Street, a throbbing cab waits in the pouring rain while a building implores, “Let’s Adore and Endure Each Other.” In the gallery’s late Vorticism, critics’ pens reel in and sour on treasonous reviews. A hood of superior aerodynamic absolutes. We drink at The Gun, spot Tracy […]
Two Poems
Cut to an Echo Indistinct, night wearies itself into day. And dawn comes to with an early bruise lacking yellow. A bird falters to redden its song, a snag of notes that can’t lift. The scalded teapot brews darkly and intensely hot. There is nothing to be done. Not now. The kitchen and its workable […]
Four Poems
Agapanthus I can’t say that the day smiled on us, or that anything smiled, As we dared the wet earth in our wet digging clothes. The late Mrs. Cockburn was in no mood to chat. It was she, After all, who was being evicted by a cruel remote-control: A letter sent from Toronto that saw […]
Three Poems
Night Drive That narcotic quality. The paradox of headlights on the hedgerow. Bach’s violins; then the Carpenters, again. We’ve only just begun… Ten and two at ten to two. The slow thunk Of catseyes as you overtake. Going nowhere you know where you’re going. Monotony is the warm fizz in your back. Brake lights for […]
Today
Today Was a suicided priest book of condolences opened in my way day. Everyone with an angle day. Today was a pus pimpled teenage boy taking his money shot at my tits day, with a handful of coins he owed me day, and said a fuck off or fucked me off day, and the sky […]
Farriery
He bastes his favourite tree at night with headlights. The leaves lap up the Toyota beams. It will flower soon just for him. His stallion will be garlanded early. Bridled with blossom of chestnut, fragrant with sweet scent. The horse’s mane matches his lover’s in length and russet hue. He stares with pursed lips from […]
The Extras
We practise our smiles under white diffusers larger than sunbeds. We are the extras, paid in plastic trays of bread and moist sandwich fillings, flagons of instant coffee and saccharined juice. We do as we’re told, laugh towards a glass eye, capturing our imperfect dentistry. We are en masse, this pack of us, hungry to […]
Two Poems
Look-a-Like It’s been months since I’ve heard from you and I’m beginning to forget which side on the continent you decide to dress each morning. Last time I saw you there was still hair on your head but I suppose you’re old now and nothing lasts forever. I think about if I saw you again, […]
Two Poems
A New Bicycle Suddenly, in Houston, Texas, which is a three-hour-flight from home, I was buying a new bicycle from a salesman in a pale pink tie. I’d not been up on a bike for twenty-something years, and I had no plans of doing anything to change that but then there I was handing over […]
The Taxidermist’s Wife
Soft thuds of Colombian butterflies in their glass displays. I dreamed they came to life again. If Louis were here, he’d groan: “Go back to sleep,” and then blow out the candle. But he’s far out at sea. I dreamed shells woke on the window sill, trembling with their inner oceans; a scraping from inside […]
Four Poems
The Garden After Andrew Marvell It was a time of laurels, a fearless time. I broke away to write – bed in the woods, on the river a moon of ice. Nights unsealed, and the knot of sleep slipped, a beat into waking. You came and took me like a child by the hand to […]
Two Poems
The Birth of the Syllable You said I should write about the fact that I’m coming to the end of a Maya 52-year cycle. I’m not connected by blood or memory to that story-drenched culture but it does populate me at the idea level, like spray at the top of a fizzy drink. Over more […]
Adam Buxton at Manchester Opera House, reviewed by Ed Chapman
Live at the Opera House – with Adam Buxton, Manchester Opera House; May 25 2016. This event promised one of those hard-to-believe, all-star line-ups that only ever happen in London. And so it proved, with three-quarters of the bill changing. While the reconfigured line-up may not have had quite the star power originally offered, this […]
The Night Watch, The Royal Exchange, reviewed by Fran Slater
The Night Watch, The Royal Exchange; May 19, 2016 (Photograph by Richard Davenport) The Night Watch, in Sarah Waters’ 2006 novel at least, investigates a range of important societal injustices that existed in England around the time of the Second World War. The novel does a thorough job of documenting the issues faced by conscientious […]
Carlos Acosta: A Classical Farewell, The Lowry, reviewed by Hazel Shaw
Carlos Acosta: A Classical Farewell, The Lowry; May 13, 2016 One of the most striking things about this performance on Carlos Acosta’s farewell tour is how little of it he spent on-stage. Not that I’m complaining, the evening was ably filled by the company of Cuban dancers touring with Acosta, and every one of the […]
The Book of Khartoum: a city in short fiction, eds. Raph Cormack & Max Shmookler (Comma Press) £9.99, reviewed by Ian Pople
The Khartoum I knew in the early ‘80s, was a dry, sprawling low-rise city, where the dominant mode of transport was still the horse and cart. The Hilux pick-up bus, known locally as a ‘box’ had started to become more commonplace, bouncing over the vaguely tarmacked, sandy roads that ran even in the city centre. […]
Twelfth Night, HOME, reviewed by Fran Slater
Twelfth Night, HOME; May 11 2016 There are a few ways to do Shakespeare. Fans of the bard will be familiar with a fair few of them. From the standard stick to the script and stick the actors in clothes that look a bit like those they wore in the 1500s, to the modernise the […]
An Evening with Chris Packham, The Lowry, reviewed by Emma Rhys
An Evening with Chris Packham: Growing Up Wild, The Lowry; May 9, 2016 I arrived at the Lowry early and was lucky enough to spot Chris Packham in his natural environment – or at least, natural to most of his species – eating lunch at the Tower Coffee Shop. He didn’t notice me. Perhaps if […]
Imitation of Life: Melodrama and Race in the 21st Century , HOME, reviewed by Şima İmşir Parker
Imitation of Life: Melodrama and Race in the 21st Century, Home, 30 April 2016 – 3 July 2016. “The melodramatic body is a body seized with meaning” writes Peter Brooks in “Melodrama, Body, Revolution.” Body is not only a sight branded with meanings and symbolism, but also a sight where resistance becomes possible through the […]
CRIME: Hong Kong Style season, HOME, reviewed by Laura Swift and Joel Swann
CRIME: Hong Kong Style season, HOME, February 4 – April 7, 2016 HOME’s ambitious season Crime: Hong Kong Style featured some twenty films over the course of two months, including films ranging from forgotten classics like The Swallow Thief, to international blockbusters such as Police Story, to several UK premieres. The season can be judged […]
Anthony Caleshu, The Victor Poems (Shearsman) £9.95, reviewed by Ian Pople
Anthony Caleshu’s extraordinary book, set in polar regions, appears at first glance to riff on two other poets, T.S. Eliot and W.S. Graham: T.S. Eliot for those lines from ‘What the Thunder said’ in which the two walking ‘up the white road’ appear to have a ghostly third walking with them. In Eliot’s notes for […]