Brain Food
I’ve been a statue for a hundred years or so now. Prior to that I was a loose mixture of metals, a gang if you will. Very disorganised, a little shallow maybe, quite violent when in a heated situation. Young and unformed. Prior to that, well who knows? I don’t. Anyway, I’ve been a statue…
It’s 1976, a boy has a smoke and meets a girl He sat in the churchyard, feeling the fag packet in his pocket. He didn’t want to go home where all his relatives would have arrived in black, trying to tell him stories about his dad, coughing into sandwiches. The night before the funeral, pretending…
Fathers Day in the UK is rolling around again. Every year since my daughter Zuzu died in July 2005 in her room in my flat in Sydney I contend with this day. This year it’s hit me in a different way. Most years I consider if I’m still qualified to call myself a father. Kind…
Today he thought he was Christ. He wasn’t Christ but today he thought he was Christ because being Christ was a great deal more interesting than Jonathan Craig Baynes of Whitchurch Avenue. Jon wasn’t mad, he was simply bored. Very, very bored looking out of the front window into the depths of Whitchurch Avenue. The…
I once had a conversation in a pub in Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia, during which I was threatened with a beating and told that the indigenous people were happier and better off before they had the vote and were paid in money. I was living in the town at the time, the…
We touched down on the surface of the planet we’d named, ‘Zangerlünd’ with no problems and, as usual we all pressed our noses to the portholes to get the first view of the new place. It was yellow, sandy but there were trees and flowing water. On it stood two of what I assumed must…
O’Keefe sat at the bar and told me that he was going to retire before the business killed him. As ever, he was wearing his old grey mac, sipping a stout and had just stubbed out a Carrolls cigarette before lighting another one. O’Keefe ran all the slot machines in West London. He was a…
Beyond the peace that flowed from her sleep Was a dark room, a cold place. Deeply moved by kind wishes, We stood in the tidal grief, Washing us into sand, Ground down by the apparent eternity, Of her brief life. The tide always left parts of us near whole. Heart or mind or soul or…
Lucky boy rescued Gave me this wonderful picture Of freedom At the start of that long Spring evening. Lovely rescued boy Cornered on a sixpence Madly happy Barking, bouncing, playing ball Lovely, lucky boy Now jumps up and chases Everything a joy Then sleeps and dreams and snores Notice: JavaScript is required for this content.
The swing of things Around here Today Resulted in a contagion Like love on holiday (Remarking to you Around there that day That you should smile Was stupid and remiss) The swing of things Around here Today Is wearying Like nostalgia for sun in rain Around here now The swing of things…