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On the Edge of Invisible
On the Edge of Invisible Our street is quiet, on the edge of invisible. I. A magpie’s in the tree, it vanishesinto deep summer leaves,then…
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An Apple for Miz Quickly
A Few Words About Malus Domestica ‘Discovery‘ the colour of its skin isan embarrassment’s blush.it bleeds rouge to its core. a stain straight into infinity,like some kind of forever.an unfathomable number. the bees,the moths,the maggots, they havetheir way with my apples, like bad boys who drink up,and leave without paying,staggering about on cider. but this…
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That Flash Before Your Eyes
It is very hard to write this way, beginning things backward… “The Torrents of Spring” (1926)- Ernest Hemingway Life, Death, and That Flash Before Your Eyes From a pram to this hearse. This dark.To wear the dark. This simple nothingness. It’s fitting funeral weather.Weather is a funeral’s skin. Rain.Mud sucks. It’s a brute sky,and the…
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A dVerse Solstice Haibun
Woke to that loose sky, the sort where rain comes from, the lurch and coil of clouds caught on gusts, and the Acer (it’s shed its hyper green for a grown-up summer colour) stands unperturbed outside the window, a megalith, it’s a heelstone, and the rain falls like bouncing pennies, another month’s worth in a…
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Published on Visual Verse
Delighted, as always, to have one of mine published by Visual Verse Anthology. If you wish to read it, it’s at Like Two Owls. Visual Verse supplies writers with a new image each month with an invitation to submit your poem or prose (written within the time limit of one hour) for possible publication. They…
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Miz Quickly’s Deal Breaker
The Dregs It’s not a little water,it’s an ocean that sweeps between.He is lost, beyond poorly, too deepin his thoughts, as ifto turn a key might unlock them all,uncork his head ofregret and guilt and neglect.It is a repetition in his ear. The dregs of him.But his unruly heartis a weakness, and his thoughtsare vapours beyond…
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Goodbye Macbeth: Life’s But a Walking Shadow
Goodbye Macbeth: Life’s But a Walking Shadow Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.Such is the way withsorrow. To endure the light of dayto find reliefin sleep, to dream our yesterdays. Day on day on day, and into my last words,I live in this thin beigeshadow, to not follow into your sun. I must stay, an idiot…
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Cars for Miz Quickly’s
The Day Dad’s Car Drowned When rain comes that fast,there’s no stopping it.Ice-cold water blew past us,washing over everything. Up through the car’s flooring,white-wall tyres half submerged,water on the backseat wheremy boxed lunch set to floating, and the man on the radio said,The storm is moving away soonin an east and north direction, but the…
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Miz Q 06.18: Poem Beginning With a Line from Macbeth
Aphidoidea Tongue nor heart cannot conceivenor name thee! But I shall. This black woe, winged griefupon my lupines.Aphidoidea of black andwhite and green fly. Aphids usheringcatastrophe, andants in their lechery farm you like sows’s milk.Like night noise. And come morning,rain knocked those jewelledpurple spikes to the ground. The image…
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Reblogged for Flashback Friday
I. It’s hot. Like record-breaking hot. I want to chill my skin across cold marble. Like shortcrust pastry needs. Or submerge myself into a wave, into the sequinned imagination of a mermaid. Like a cold water fish. Like a big old lazy cod. I want to hibernate in a green grassy mirage before I falter…
It's Still Life 