Category: prose
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0109: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown: Episode #4 (catch-up with all episodes here) No. 4, Dead Men Don’t Drown: The Antique Shop on Rope Walk I walk into town for bread, milk and a box of wooden matches for the coal fire; inheriting a cottage means inheriting an endless list of small errands. Halfway home, a fleck…
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2508: Protesting Quadrilles
Two Protesting Quadrilles I.she is one among a hundredsandaled feet,leather slappinglate-August streets. heat risesto regimented metre,chanting voices,summer-tanned skin. the street becomesa wilderness of protest,placards ticking,senses wiredto explosion. police draw a line.skin presses skin. paniccrosses it. II.she came with sandals,August skin,a placard.nothing more. then protest foundits marching metre: slap of leather,chant and answer,heat risingfrom a hundred…
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A Six: The Law of Finders
This “Framed Poem” is written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story, Poetry Slam on 27 August I had been content to sit and listen as one poet after another stepped into the small pool of light, when the woman at the microphone looked directly at me, smiled as though we had already shared some confidence, and…
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Six Sentence Café Announcement
Poetry Slam: 27 August, Thursday Six Sentence Café & Bistro Poetry Slam I occasionally look back and wonder how thoroughly a life ties itself to loved ones, children, occupations, old enthusiasms and memories so stubborn that even time, for all its practice, cannot quite rub out. My ink appears to know this better than I…
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1808: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown: #3 (catch-up with all episodes here) Episode #3 The charity van arrives just after ten, driven by a narrow man with a nose sharp enough to open letters and eyes that know the profitable function of grief before I have finished carrying the boxes to the gate. He lifts the flaps…
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1108: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown Episode #2 Three months ago this cottage still listened to my grandmother; now it belongs to me, though at times it feels like arriving halfway through a conversation she started with the walls some eighty years ago. I’ve learnt the house wakes early, long before I’ve slept enough, but I manage…
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0608: Jimmy Barglefloop
The Legend of Jimmy Barglefloop a six sentence story Everyone assumed Jimmy Barglefloop carried a magnifying glass to search for rare things, but when someone asked, “What do you do all day!” he slipped a smiled into his reply, “I just notice stuff.” All day he wandered marshes enlarging dew on spider silk, warts on…
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0408: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown Episode 1 Two ceramic Staffordshire spaniels on my grandmother’s windowsill spent my childhood combing the sea beyond the harbour wall, their glazed eyes fixed beyond a window etched white by salt; one would think they expected the tide to bring somebody back. The sea never stayed outside, its salt creeping into…
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3107: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown: Epilogue A Six Mystery Every family spins a yarn and learns to live inside its shape, each retelling pulling the ends a little tighter… until someone starts bending the floorboards. My name is Fenella, and my story begins beside the sea, where salt settles into windowpanes and door hinges alike, preserving…
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3007: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown A Liturgy for an Unraveller(for those who stop accepting the family yarn) I. The Thread That HoldsEvery family has a story,a yarn spun so long and so oftenit becomes indistinguishable from truth. It is the tale told at gatherings,the narrative that keeps the peaceby keeping certain doors closed. You were raised…
It's Still Life 