June 18 2018 (Berlin) Three schoolgirls, skirted & shirted, each with a small rucksack across their white cottoned back, play a neat dance game in the carriage on the 7 u-bahn. They spin & clap the upturned soles of their smart shoes together, spin & slap palms. A pleated chorus of words & laughter accompanies … Continue reading Notes From a Fragile Island. 22
My piece 'Photocopy of a Snapshot in the Mirror Frame' (and two other prose/poetry pieces) are featured in this edition of the excellent Free Verse Revolution magazine. This piece, as with all my work to some or no small extent, is based on both a true story and a real photocopy of a snapshot in … Continue reading ‘Photocopy of a Snapshot in the Mirror Frame’ [published at Free Verse Revolution]
10.06.21 Spotty John, the local street-level weed dealer, shuffles up and down the beach front in his regulation grey sweats. My, he's piled on the pounds. He wheezes by the railings. The tide is out and the rocks are crowded with out-of-towners, blow-ins and clowns from the city in their inappropriate footwear. They are looking … Continue reading dream diaries…106
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.
They sat on the doorstep at the back of the flats every evening filling the jam jar ashtray and trading hushed nothings. Autumn, she sat with her knees drawn and clasped. She stretched her legs long before her, silk pouring from them, on June evenings such as this one. They had been joined by another … Continue reading Starlight Conversation.
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.
