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Nudge #8 Brown Paper
SURPRISE I’m going to wrap myself up in plain brown paper so I can be perfectly obscene and despicable. I’ll be filthy-minded and uncouth, and I’ll swear at the moon, and not care one tiny bit, if and when, the neighbours might see me — because I’ll be all wrapped up in plain brown paper,…
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Nudge 7: Taking on Two Monks
Two Monks’ Perspective on Lamb Heads, and Playing the Blink Game Monk #1: How big is a lamb’s head? Monk #2: They only eat blades of grass, so not so big. Monk #1: What’s not too big. Big as a bishop’s head? Monk #2: Not that big. A lamb has to fit into a man’s…
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A Housewife in a Tweed Coat and Sensible Shoes
A Housewife in a Tweed Coat and Sensible Shoes She ponders herself in the hallway mirror, powders her nose, just a bit – doesn’t want to look like a flour bin. Slicks on Copper Penny lipstick, then rubs her lips together, spreading it thin and even. She puts on her best woollen hat, pushes a…
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Nudge #4 Glose Poem
And this is the end, the car running out of road, the river losing its name in an ocean — “Aristotle” by Billy Collins THE SOCK BOX How many pairs of socks did she murder in that communal washing machine that breaks up pairs of sporty whites and blacks and stripy and even cutesy Christmas…
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Nudge #6
Lightnin’ Strikes, No Matter I Hang on to the Flowers on the Wall. Listen. The Sound of a Butterfly, Over and Over — O’ to be a Daydream. to Make the Empty World Go Away, You’re My Fever Time, Just My Way of Walkin’ Nudge 6: from a list of song titles and…
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For Twiglet #101
– an American Sentence It was a lifetime, bagged and boxed, rehoused, and given to charity. Twiglet #101 “Brick-by-Brick“
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Quadrille #68
Perfectly Brief There’s a note stuck in the air, like you might do with a rose in water. A note — not bird song, not a metallic clapper or strings of cat gut, but a note, written with crescendo longing. It’s perfectly brief. One word: Wink. Quadrille #68 “Wink“
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5 November 2018
An American Sentence – I apologise for not raking up the leaves as fast as they fall. NovPAD Day 4: An apology
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26 October 2018
Some Candles Never Get Lit I feel an urge to light a candle, for my mum. A scented one. But that’s not allowed at The Oaks Residential Care Home, and my sister says, the oldies forget that they’ve lit the damned things; they catch curtains and carpets alight. And I don’t mention that age-wise I’m…
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16 October 2018
Leaning on Solid Space I am stood on a far shore. Powerless. I smell of old bones. Me, a tiny survivor, a day on the ridge of cold. The 28th day of the 9th month, it was like drowning in a raindrop. The inevitability of it all. And I wonder, did you say, Well, that…
It's Still Life 