We have seen things
02 Oct 2020 Category: poetry
We have seen millions of years
stacked upon another in sediment
history etched into the stone,
outlines and skeletons of creatures
beyond imagination who used
to claim this planet as their own.
We have wandered far from light
covered our hands in ochre dust
and pressed them into the walls
to leave a mark for those following.
We have roamed away from our home
plains, seen towering trees that are
the earth breathing, lakes turned to
rock by angry gods, high mountains
where they sit...
September 2020 Links
30 Sep 2020 Category: link round up
When I ported this site over and recoded it, I looked through old posts. In 2016 I made monthly link posts where I recommended things I enjoyed. Later, I moved this to a now defunct newsletter.1 I thought I would bring back recommendations, changing the format a little bit. So here are some things I’ve enjoyed.
Article
Blair Braverman On Getting Rejected a Lot (and Liking It). This is excellent advice that I feel I learn over and over again. Worth reading and refreshing.
Book
I finally got round to reading Why I’m...
Korembi
23 Sep 2020 Category: photos
Komorebi (木漏れ日): the scattered light that filters through when sunlight shines through trees
The Garden
21 Sep 2020 Category: this was meant to be the future
Surrounded by the long grass swaying in the breeze, the office seemed forever away. Helen could hear the gentle babbling of a stream somewhere nearby. Far up in the sky, a bird of prey hovered, looking for dinner. She felt the warmth of the golden sun on her face. She needed this.
This morning had been a busy one, with four hundred and seventeen emails landing in her inbox, most marked urgent and needing immediate action. As she had waded through them, another fifty three had arrived.
The way Helen saw it, every department had their turn in the fire...
Productivity in a Crisis
17 Sep 2020 Category: plague notes
From the always excellent Laurie Penny writing in Wired:
It’s hardly surprising that so many of us are processing this immense, unknowable collective catastrophe by escaping into smaller, everyday emergencies. A crisis you create for yourself, after all, is a crisis you might be able to control. Frantic productivity is a fear response.
I recommend reading the whole article. It identified how I felt at the start of the crisis. I attempted to ignore the outside world and settle into big projects. I learnt to code, rebuilt and redesigned this whole website, wrote...
Beyond
14 Sep 2020 Category: erasure poetry
Taken from Crack Magazine, February 2020.
This one took a lot of digital manipulation. I wanted to break out of the usual black to reflect the content. This was the original in context:
Rocket
12 Sep 2020 Category: poetry
shot
into
inferno
propels
bodies
beyond
our
.
cargo:
food
tools
hope
Show and Tell
04 Sep 2020 Category: poetry
Miss Morris asked us to bring something special
in and talk about it in front of the class
for everyone else to share and enjoy
and so in this cardboard box I have brought
the first rays of morning and if I open it
this classroom, with its peeling walls,
its desks engraved with cramped insults
and declarations of love from children
who have now become adults, its blutacked
posters of the alphabet, all we can see will
transform into gold and all our...
Costal walks
02 Sep 2020 Category: photos
I’m delighted to have a poem over at Mineral Lit. It’s a very strange one called Travelling.
Missed Connection
25 Aug 2020 Category: poetry
Were you the stranger dressed in electricity
who floated above the tarmac without contact,
who smiled in morse code, smelled of lavender
and engine oil, who spoke in rapid static bursts
which I understood to be secrets never spoken?
Did you splinter my sternum, peer inside to find
distant storms and lightning brewing? Did you fold
yourself into the air and vanish, entering the unseen
creases of reality as easily as catching a bus?
Were your irises burnt into the pavement for days?
Please respond to me if...
Advert Break
20 Aug 2020 Category: this was meant to be the future
The opening shot is a still lake, first thing in the morning. The sun has just started to beam down on the water. It is a mirror, reflecting the perfect blue sky. There’s no clouds. Not here. The lake is surrounded by pine trees, all pristine as if they have been copy and pasted. There’s a pier that juts out from the bottom of the frame into the lake, with a small row boat tied to it. The boat has a cloth tarpaulin over it and oars sticking out. A couple of boards are missing on the pier. Paint on...
Categories
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