the very last words that she heard were, “hey, man! they’ve just landed!” it was late one night in ‘69 we laid her out on a big blue blanket. we carried her down to the beach through the town, there was a storm brewing on the atlantic. the needle dropped down and i heard the … Continue reading Side 2 of Beggar’s Banquet.
Some years later. He pulls the peacoat collar up over his ears and, head down, takes heel to the bottom of the street. Folk still whisper as he passes, but less so these days. They grow old, they float away, they die. He lives with the memories of that night; the sky more white star … Continue reading The Lookout.
Slipping between browsers at Borough market, she pretended an interest in literature, in homeware and clothes, in vinyl. Her hand dipped foreign pockets. Some coins, receipts, some lint. Some nothing. She was counting again the coins in the underpass, handing lint alms out with receipts to the breeze, when - Aight, Letitia. You lookin cold, … Continue reading And When I Sleep, Luella. [ix]
The rabbit has to be put into the hat before it can be brought out. He had taken of late to dwelling a grotto at the brink of the town. And here, from this cavern, of a gloam and of a dawn, he beckoned and beat back the breakers that boomed on the beach. … Continue reading Wizard of Was.
The day she won the National Exclamation Lottery - which was also her birthday - she decided, at once, that almost the first thing she would do was buy her old man the boat. She was generous like this. But, first, she had to go to work. So, she finished her second coffee, pocketed her … Continue reading Hejira.
There aren't so many pirates at the pirate party. Mostly, it's just people at a party. Dizzy, though, who I haven't seen since Lemons, him and me spent that week in Cornwall, is stood at the window, staring at the sea. He has a blackjoke, plastic pirate patch over one eye. It has a skull … Continue reading The Pirate Party.
