he lights a cigarette and begins to list the illnesses that have struck people down in the area. Cancer. Coronary. Liver and kidney failure. And he says, "they're just the killers. Migraine. Anxiety. Impotence. Thrombosis. The high rates of carcinogenic illness in the area are being looked into. It all relates." One by one, down to … Continue reading Leaning into the gas ring
"Aye, coffin nails," she says regarding the spread of used cigarettes collected on the table before her. Her dreadlocks are corralled on top of her small head with a knotted tie-dye rag. She wears a lot of tie-dye. She laughs and the tips of hair prance on her shoulders like waxen ponies. She drums her … Continue reading Blanket For A Bairn.
The Russian, recently bare, but now clad only in tiny vinyl shorts and flip-flops, was telling me all about how the dog days came to be called the dog days. Apparently it had to do with the stars, or the trade winds, or something. I tried to concentrate on the words, but he tended to … Continue reading Breadknife To An Iceberg.
She retreated an inch within and the piss porcelain and wet paper towels and the shit littered tiles and her size seven boot, printing damp jam to the door of the lavatory where she found herself, all seemed suddenly quite salubrious. But she wouldn't take a piss in there. Breathed out, rubbed her arms, rubbed … Continue reading And When I Sleep, Luella. [v]
It is a gorse-yellow and golden dawn over Penn Beacon. Fresh rush and suck of the shingle beneath the shallow lap waves as they reach, keel and recoil. We roll the boat from the low trailer into the sea. Ffooks and Farrow, his cousin, on one side, Sean and I on the other. When we … Continue reading Five in the lapstrake.
Had he never misplaced the mojo, he may, he reasoned one evening, have been able to keep a keener eye on his star. But, he sensed, it had fallen. He came to this late. Drew scant detail. Reason, as such, eluded. He dreamed a nearfuture pocket of his being patted. Mojo? He looked up in … Continue reading Dim Star, Mojito & Mojo Rising.
