Category: music
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2309: A Six — SSC&B Alcove
Strikethrough a book called “Le Grand Herbier en Françoys” I am wearing time’s dust skin here: this is Montpellier University Library Archive, and beyond the tinted glass lies a flame-singed copy of Le Grand Herbier en Françoys — a sixteenth-century root-system of human knowing — it has brought me full circle, and something in me goes very still grows very…
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Ten Things of Thankful
I. Faith in all its universal varied forms, and for friends who hold one not higher than another. There is something deeply civilised in making room for reverence without turning it into a contest. II. Thankful for gargoyles — gloriously grotesque, beautifully expressive, and still managing to communicate across the centuries. Some faces simply refuse…
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1609: Dead Men Don’t Drown

Dead Men Don’t Drown: #6 (catch-up with all episodes here) The next morning I take the spaniels’ silence in hand to the local history room above the museum, not because I have never heard of Love Dogs, but because family knowledge is a slippery thing and I want paper beneath it. A volunteer with hair…
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Ten Things of Thankful
This has been a very good week, despite the sober appearance of the woman above — moments of reflection, discovery, and connecting with a change in the weather. I. Bookshelves! Once, our long wall was covered with them, now we have four: reference, cookery books, road maps folded along old journeys, mementoes tucked between them…
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1009: Everywhere Poems
Where Heat Takes You the air sits stitched with thunder,heat flat and still, and I half-remembermy mother’s face,young andlong ago, gentleas a rocking chair creaking. Everywhere Poems don’t have a subject. They have a starting point and follow wherever attention leads. It’s — go for a walk and see where you end up. Some images…
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0909: A Six – SSC&B Alcove
The Alcove: Strikethrough two on the fence, one grey squirrel motionless, an the other — its tail a rudder steering through speed, crimped and flagging semaphores messages; a spiderweb at the window, delicate as Brugge lace, a breeze inflicting coaxing teasing a minute tremor through its lattices; autumn arrived two months early, as though woollen socks had some private grievance against summer the world had grown impatient with…
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0909: Everywhere Poems
Free tried once.fell off. slowly. slid like animation.like marmaladeoff hot toast. dented myselfa bit on August-dry clay. soot-black eyeand a sprained wrist. the horse and I,we walked back to the stables. I fed him windfall applesbruised with bee stings. talked about howi’d remember this dayfor the rest of my life. i love to watch horses…
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0809: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown: #5 (catch-up with all episodes here) “Hi Mum, it’s me — ay’okay, well, sort of, because I popped up the shops for milk, bread, and a few bits, and saw two pottery Staffordshire dogs like Gran’s in the antique shop, so I went in to see whether they were worth anything.”…
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0509: Journal of SenHai
SenryūThe path says nothingI follow its listeningdeeper into green. HaikuListening through green,stone path curves toward the seawind enters the tree. SenryūThe tree stands its groundgrass comes running with the windstone wanders away. HaikuBrown trunk in deep greenthe stone path stitches through grasswind unpicks the seam. Written for SenHai Saturday: #68. Not all images are created…
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0409: Six Sentence Story
The Alcove: Afters Last week’s Poetry Slam has ended, the scent of cigars lingering hungry for fire to catch from a match. The proprietors gather at the end of the bar, hugs and laughter — how little separates laughter from crying, I think. Denise looks up from polishing water marks from a wine glass; “Hi…