8 [photocopy of a snapshot] I cut Lillian's hair every twelfth week, dry it every sixth. It grows. I cut it. I dry it. It has become grey by increments; city pigeon to autumn noon, fading print to cigarette ash. Each accretion of tone slowly highlighting further her pink brittle cheeks, the pools … Continue reading Mirror (8): Pale Airman.
I found the following manuscript excerpts when I moved home recently. It was beneath the carpet in the box room & appears to be part of some quite extensive notes for a proposed dissertation/thesis/biography (?) by someone called Henry Eves. Many of the pages were quite unreadable due to damp & many further parts were … Continue reading The Surprising Successes of The Ferraras (part one of three)
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.
The young lounge the hours on the benches of the dead: their carefully careless hair skew-wiffs caps. Scratched and battered skateboards slung at their outstretched sneakers. Energy drinks clutched in one hand, handset in the other. Sickly, sticky-blue smiles on insect faces. You rarely see anyone riding a board these days. The older guys, sure. … Continue reading The Ancient Skate Punk.
It was chalked on the bog wall and spread quickly round school - a whisper to a chant in the playground. “Pippin’s mum’s only got one tit!” Odd. • We’d played darts at Pippin’s last summer. The house on the corner, halfway up Steep Street. I kept score. We smoked his mum’s cigarettes, drank his … Continue reading Withered Apples.
