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28 June 2021
We’re Lucky Fear and suspicion, death and isolation aside,lockdown was good to us, I say.You’re eating oatmeal. You nod. We had ample food on the table,our health, and money enoughto turn on the heating in June. You pause the spoonfuls to sayit was the wettest, coldest June you can rightly remember. I nod. And…
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A Gogyohka: In Dreams
A Gogyohka: In Dreams My father, who passedmany years ago,suddenly appearedin my dreamlast night. Pale hair.Certainly more of itthan I rememberhim ever having. His back to me.He was fishing.A mirror-still river,swollen to nearoverflowing. But it wasonly as deep asmy father’s ankles.His legs like pillarssplitting the water. Perhaps things aren’tas deep as we think.and I wonder:Do…
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Miz Quickly’s Colours
What Do You See I see a spill of cognac,silk and chalky grey,an astral lay andfailing light.Uncorked oak,and an open slack,warming earth, anda morning road for those of faith,a song, and a religious scent. And the remains of a day that chooses us. There’s syrup of autumn,turmeric flesh,a poem for Poe…
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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…
It's Still Life 