Withered branches, bony fingers,
scrape a sea of forever cloud.
Ash falls in soft snow clumps,
embracing land with quiet tenderness.
Look down, to where knotted roots
erupt from the carpet of grey.
Imperceptible at first, your eyes
adjust: new scattered flecks of green.
All the poems I wrote last year are available as an ebook for free. It's called Lost in April Fog and you can download it here.
Lying in bed awake as the city sleeps,
the events of the day play before her
like a scratched and dusty DVD. Incidents
unfold out of sequence, sentences
skip and repeat and fall out of sync.
As the pause button fails again, she tries
to listen to calming sirens instead.
All the poems I wrote last year are available as an ebook for free. It's called Lost in April Fog and you can download it here.
and confusion and so you live
and this time round you learn
the universe has more dimensions
than you can possibly perceive
and you are an ant on a paper strip
and the end is darkness then lights
All the poems I wrote last year are available as an ebook for free. It's called Lost in April Fog and you can download it here.
Under a static sky, we speak
in dial-up modem screeches.
Number stations replace news.
Books become junk code. Still, some
claim to see patterns in the flux.
All the poems I wrote last year are available as an ebook for free. It's called Lost in April Fog and you can download it here.
Down here, light dances on my skin.
The world is a muffled radio
playing the next house over.
I sink and try to tune in.
All the poems I wrote last year are available as an ebook for free. It's called Lost in April Fog and you can download it here.
Sudden rain cascade
hits pavements and commuters.
Primrose opens up.
All the poems I wrote last year are available as an ebook for free. It's called Lost in April Fog and you can download it here.
Abandoned in the dark earth
we bend towards the light
All the poems I wrote last year are available as an ebook for free. It's called Lost in April Fog and you can download it here.
For the last couple of years I've taken part in NaPoWriMo, where I try to write a poem every day in April. I've really enjoyed the process. It's got me back into writing and has helped produce some of my favourite poems. And some of my least favourites, but the beauty of this writing exercise is you carry on regardless. I also really enjoyed publishing them in public last year. It forced me to be accountable to myself and not skip any days, whilst also trying to make them as good as possible.
If you want to see my attempts...
I slipped off the viewing platform,
slid under the flimsy handrail
fell down or forwards or up
towards the black hole.
I cursed flimsy safety measures
but knew it was far too late.
Wrong to think I was unique,
I was just atoms, accelerating
without friction towards an
unknowable spiral nothing.
One last view of the cosmos
before I reached the event horizon
and paused
forever.
I...
With apologies to Emily Dickinson
“Hope” is the memory of a dream
vanishing seconds after waking,
already fragmenting, quickly forgotten
as we methodically pack away our camp.
Since we came to this former town
that thing with feathers has stalked us.
Our every slight movement tracked
as it circles around our frail bodies.
Here, that thing perches above us
imitating old radio broadcasts
or those lost long ago to time.
It strikes us in the soul. We walk on.
Today, dawn attacks my eyes.
As I rise to find new sanctuary
it sings the tune without the words.
I...
I though I was a good typist. I’ve written on computers all my life. I type fast. But the truth is half my time is spent correcting errors. I write fast but sloppy. So I started to learn to touch type.
I tried to learn a few years ago but only got half way through learning, not committing to the practice. As a result, my typing is a weird hybrid of hunt and peck and formal touch typing. I didn’t practise enough to embed the muscle memory. So I started again from the beginning. I expect to breeze through the...
Genre fiction is often used to describe science fiction and fantasy, but everything fits into a genre. People tend to dismiss sci-fi as not belonging to the real world and following set formulas. I admit to similar prejudices with crime novels, particularly those with detectives or journalists trying to solve a murder. There are some twists and red herrings, the protagonist gets personally involved due to their issues but by the end of the story it is all neatly resolved and the murderer is revealed. This is the narrow-minded view I have of the crime genre.
Admittedly, I have not...
Towards the end of last year, I finished two major projects I had been working on for ages, a short story collection and a poetry collection. I finished them to a stage where only minor changes were needed.1 These sprawling ideas I had been carrying around in my head, my notebook and several disparate files suddenly existed as completed manuscripts.
They aren’t available yet. Publishing is a whole different mode to writing. But all the writing is done. ↩
For my first book of the year, I sped through Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation, the first in the Southern Reach Trilogy. It is classified as science fiction, but in this case it seems to be a catch-all category of “I dunno. Seems weird.” Science fiction isn’t really a good classification for this odd novel. From the very first moments, it is clear that this strange little book is delving deep into horror.
In Area X, the rules of the world we know are discarded. There is only the alien ecosystem subverting every part of nature. Immediately, things go very wrong indeed....
I’ll finally tidy up this place and keep it neat. It’s too dark! Too many cobwebs and not enough flaming torches. I’ll stop leaving tomes half opened on the lectern. Need to keep my ingredients in order. I can never find salamander’s tails when I need them. Similarly, I will stop leaving half-finished potions around the place. The number of times I’ve been interrupted then come back to find the laboratory filled with a putrid purple smoke, I tell you… It’s not good. I’m four hundred and seventy-two, I need to start clearing up after myself.
Once I tidy up,...