And so I work my way into (or around) the fourteener. The Great Flood This is from the day when I knew the coin had two faces, both the same, both yours. On that day, my final doubts shattered: unhinged, my heart slipped out of its cave and, hitting the bridge, became a river which became …
A Rather Late Entry
Tanka and Haiku Sequence The street lamp was our only star, its splattered light the sole barrier between our frissons and that heavy night of back alleys. * Down where the subway should have been, silence trickled on unseen rail tracks.
Upping My Game for NaPoWriMo
Out of seemingly nowhere, NaPoWriMo is upon me. So be it then. I'll admit that after of month of daily lyricism I feel my creative juices starting to run dry. But I refuse to be daunted by that! I shall tame that inspiration! For the whole of April, therefore, I shall up my game. Not …
A Butterfly Postcard
Butterfly Haiku Moving the whole sky with their uncharted hungers: first spring butterflies. * Stained glass come alive turns fields into cathedrals, chasing rain away. * Where my thoughts begin I know not. A butterfly kingdom has risen. And tomorrow, for NaPoWriMo!
Sedate Postcard
Siesta The tiredness of the armchair, the aches of the catatonic lamp, the dominion of the window, defamiliarising the sky, the magazines and papers, weeks old, unread, spread, in a faint, onto the table. Flowers with crooked elbows, too bored to even die. The discreet agony of sunny afternoons, when sleep is the opiate, and …
A Strange Postcard
Birthday Letters from the Sea To the waves he spoke little. He preferred listening to them, to their incessant conversations, sometimes soothing, as though old friends were recounting parables from the lives of the saints; other times querulous, like lovers cheated out of their hearts. In his house, he softened his footsteps, not to perturb …
A Postcard for the Lonely
Versions of Solitaire The solitude we seek grows wild, between thorny words and amongst steep hills. It wears the promise of home on its sleeve and it never smiles. Loneliness is not as welcoming. It unfolds its claw where you would least expect it; you need not search for it. In warm and clean-smelling beds …
A Postcard for the City Dwellers
I was beginning to run out of interesting postcards to write on, so I decided to make a short trip into town and stock up! Now, I'd had my sights set for a while on several of those 100 postcards collections issued by Penguin, but especially on the one featuring gorgeous New Yorker covers. So …
A Postcard for the Coquettes
La Sorcière You can tell, of death or devils she has never thought much; the monstrous pregnancy of her coiffure defies the skinless crown. All claws and maggots, those half-men, but cloth and care, she, gold and perfume. It has been the zest of history to gossip about death and the maiden. But her womb …
Another Rushed Postcard
Anti-reflection In that shallow glass all my crude years reflected from twilight backwards: one age for putting up walls, one age for crumbling with them.
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 