Category: Journal
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12 May: Ritual
Ritual She tilts like a star leaning against her hip, slips into that dark galaxy void, where her eyes are gentle on her restless soul. And waves surge marble-hard, a chance to break against her thighs like flexing muscle fans. Her pulse quickens as she chants rituals in her own flickering light. I am 90%…
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12 May: To Grow A Thought
To Grow a Thought The sun shines into tucks of towels.It’s a scent of heatthat grazes the skin.The scent of sunbathers in burnt colours.Shades of cardinal-scarletstretched in lines at the white duskof morning. The air shatters with thunder.Half the sky is alivewith rain brushing clouds,while couples in lateness of lifechatter and buzzlike bees undeterred.And in…
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6 December: Somewhere There’s Always Chocolate
Somewhere near the equator, my youngest son is explaining to his daughter of nearly 6 years why she can’t have chocolate for breakfast, in much the same way that I explained to him when he was 6, why he couldn’t eat chocolate for breakfast, and much like my mum explained to me that eating chocolate…
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27 November: Journal
27 November:It’s still morning. Time slows when there’s no external noise. No radio. No telly. No talking. No music … except for the shallow sound of his breathing as he reads the Sunday’s paper. Sunday always becomes Monday, if you judge the date by a newspaper. Saturday is thicker than weekdays. Sundays less so than…
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26 November: Journal
25 November:I’m sitting in my chair. Reclined. Fingers locked across my lap. Eyes closed, and headphones isolating me from vague noise. I’m listening to I Walk With Ghosts by Scott Buckley. Violins in deep centred waves. Spiral rebirth – I fall into a shallow sleep. A shallow breath. Strings drawing out my every thought into…
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26 October: Disintegration
Disintegration Do you hear that?There’s an empty space in my voice. A void in my capabilities.To climb a hill, and exhaust it. Stairs by handrailsby step-step, step-step. Do you see the ghost of a womanwho could take stairs two at a time. Zero to sixty in 3.3 seconds.Off-piste.5K. I’m in danger of becomingmoss on a…
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25 September: Idling Thoughts on a Road Trip
25.09.23 Driving South Along the Mosel River 7:25Fog licks the morning in curls, and rides like wingless birds on grapevines. Hushed on terraced steps. River reflections that come for solitude. This is the Mosel River. 8:00The old church tower is a spike into time. We are small. Solitary. Rising essence of water, we are this.…
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22 September: Idling Thoughts on a Road Trip
21.09.23 (563 words: reading time 3 minutes) 09:57Cows find their way on to fields where they shouldn’t. It is life beyond language. 10:00Hay stacked in blocks of henges. The next farm, rolls ambered disks. Like fallen moons. Grounded on a field. With cows. Wind haunts the air. 10:20Birch. Curvaceous green in the wind. Air is…
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21 September: Idling Thoughts on a Road Trip
20.09.23 09:00He’s refusing to talk. You’re writing down everything I say. No, I’m not, I tell him. I didn’t write what you said about your foot itching yesterday. Well, okay, I have now, but you forced my hand. 09:01He has an adorable grin. I love to hear him laugh. 10:50He and I have been through…
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20 September: Idling Thoughts on a Road Trip
19.09.23 08:10The rain is a tantrum. It’s dashing itself against the window as if it were a ship on the rocks. He’s staring at it. It will pass, he says. You sound like Nostradamus, I tell him. Or Moses parting water. 08:15He’s still standing at the window. Looking. Rain and sea. Wind in syllables. This…
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