At Penn Beacon market last weekend, I bought a dozen National Geographic magazines (dated some four decades ago, but for one with a beautiful African savanna on the cover, that was from April 1982; the paper of which was considerably thinner) from a man who, as well as cheap collections of periodicals – such as … Continue reading The Dream Job.
Scarce of traffic, vehicular or pedestrian, Sumner Road stretches east-west across the early evening dereliction that was once lined with kempt and pretty red bricked terraces and local businesses, but now is bordered only by bombed-out and mostly abandoned buildings resembling broken teeth. Some are so destroyed that the backyards, wild with nettles, can … Continue reading Sumner Road.
The women were the last to leave. Monica, Luella, Jodie, Siobhan. Lottie and Tin Ribs. They left the simple room in ones and twos, led by the redhead with wet, brown eyes and lace up shoes. She held her tiny chin an inch inclined. She appeared to him no older than when they had last … Continue reading Cold Hands.
I woke up and the room was dark. The room was dark and peaceful. I had been dreaming about someone from the past - a friend I hadn't seen since twenty-fourteen or sometime thereabouts. She was working in that dream in a school, she was working in that dream behind the reception desk in a … Continue reading empty pages.
January 16th 2009 (Hook Farm, Uplyme) 8am. There is a doe outside the window. She is nuzzling the wet grass. She glances up at me after a while, stares, chewing, then continues foraging. Later, I scoop and crumble the insides of yesterday's french stick and I scatter the bread on the grass for the small … Continue reading Notes From a Fragile Island. 11
november, this window grows crowded with an apple, halved avocado, tangerine, sprig of mint. a ginger root man, a cork, a silver dollar and a hard rubber egg (where did that come from?). an old yellow zippo, a ufo book, a penny pipe from the thames. a bracelet and a figure in need of some … Continue reading Roud’s ‘English Year’.
