Category: SSS
-
3108: The Liturgy Episode 4
Episode 4: Dead Men Don’t Drown — Liturgy for the Antique Shop(where the dead linger in the objects they once loved) I. The Shop That Holds the PastThe antique shop breathes softly,beeswax and dust holding the warmth of roomswhose fires went out years ago. Objects wait for hands that will not be theirs. Silver has…
-
2508: Six Sentence Poem
They Left This morning four beeslay quietlyon the patio stones. not sleeping. the sunhad simply askedtoo much of them. I carried each oneto the shade, where lavenderstill remembersword for word,their names. I’d rather believethey’ve gone somewhere cooler,where foxglovesnever wilt, and cloverkeeps flowering. somewherewhere no beeneed choosebetween thirstand sunlight. Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story Poetry…
-
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…
-
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…
-
1708: The Liturgy
Episode 3 — Liturgy for the Charity Van(for those who sort the belongings of the dead) I. The Van at the Door The charity van pulls up.The driver is kind but level,practised in the art of receivingwhat the living can no longer hold. Fenella watches him load the boxes,each one containing a fragmentof her grandmother’s…
-
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…
-
1008: The Liturgy #2
Liturgy for the Inherited Weight(for those who must sort through the past) I. The Objects That Remember Every object in this house carries a memory,one we pressed into itwith our hands, our habits,our refusal to let go. The chipped mug she dropped at seven,her grandmother kept using,as if the crack were not a flawbut a…
-
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…
-
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…
-
0308: The Liturgy
Liturgy for the Dogs on the Windowsill(Rye Harbour, Sussex: where the sea keeps its secrets) I. The Threshold of SaltThe house faces the harbourthrough windows etched with winter’s salt,the brine of decades pressed into glasslike a watermark of all that has been lost. Salt in the hinges.Salt in the frames.Salt in the hems of curtainsthat…
