Crimson sinew of pummelled raspberries And bittersweet citrus Squished and Oozed To a sticky vibrant pulp Glugs out of the carton marked “Innocent”. The juices rise to the rim Slip down my throat; I can feel the sharp tang fester and bloom Tantalisingly sweet As the pith sinks to the bottom of the glass.   […]

In days of yore when England fair, Hath fallen into disrepair, The knight to whom she in despair, Did gratefully turn was Tony Blair.   T’was glorious, that triumphant sight! The hearts o’the nation hath shone bright, With hopes that the fearless Sir Blair might, Put all the wrongs o’England right.   The dragon slain, […]

I am from a life filled with colour, From the chocolate brown that is my skin. I am from the sunshine yellow of my mother’s laugh, From the red and white of my brother’s favourite football shirt. I am from the crisp new white pages of a book, From the miserable grey of the street […]

I knew the shoulder’s anatomy; how it worked on curves, the joint’s smooth rig, the elegant roll of the pulley that preceded Newton’s boltless bridge. I had focused on the eyes though, or the places love can act with the lights out, where the smile is like a curtain drawing back. Perhaps it’s simply that […]

It was a hot day, too hot for June. I took him to the beach with a picnic; red wine and strawberries, like when we were young.   He was wearing his suit (never had much of a memory; he got up for work on Sunday). With rolled up cuffs like a little boy he […]

A father looks on at his empire: buildings, walls, business Rent, money, tax, segments of one father’s real son.   His DNA son looks at a picture, a picture of his Father at a young age working a hard farm life. He sees hunger. Hunger not for a roast dinner but for an empire. The […]

moth, you silkflutter at my window, amberdust wings in a flurry of hope, legs and arms tangle, scramblescraping at the stoneblack glass, shivering across the loose-slip surface no foothold, crack or nook to stop.   moth, my cruel reflection thrown over you and flung into the night at the stars (where you should be, throfting […]

OK OK OK listen. You mincepied? You roastpotatoed? You goosefatted? You burping in public? No worries, no worries, come, come and see what we have here. We have Lycra, pink, green, leopard-print, and pumping pumping muzak (top 40 type, you’ll recognise), gym membership, yoga mat, swimming costume, Lucozade coupons et cetera now: listen: carefully: you […]

When I slip my grades, blunder fingers through an audition, refuse to gather my tongue, my father sits me in the library, self-important:   Between study and study and study, he was expected to uphold ancestry’s honor, clean his family’s worn apartment, patch the gaps between its teeth. One day, they could not afford tincan […]

We’ll make ginger snaps wrapped in ribbons, bake trays of mudcake spilling into crevices in the oven mix the icing with too much sugar and too many sprinkles not enough chocolate or lashings of water; lick it from our hands and stickily push our hair from our faces. We’ll finish up and leave bowls unwashed […]

I like to imagine that we are so ordinary We have names to shout from rooftops From which we can jump, arms akimbo And take leave of our bodies in religion.   I like to imagine that we are so ordinary We can dedicate our lives to some gentle lethargy Tea and rampant bibliophilia A […]

I exfoliate with sea salt I moisturise in garlic I rub raw pink chicken smooth as a baby and wet. So I can smell deep in my skin all those meals that I’ve cooked. Ginger mixed with onions butter and cauliflower. And sometimes if the time is right just inside my wrist is salmon. I’m […]

i. How did it happen? Ten hours and ten minutes more but the day has ended, and I see you: shoes still on your feet, and your clothes, all the colours out of place against the mortuary walls.   I remember: The way you’d hold my hand in both of yours, the way you’d ask, […]

The sun, today – it leaks desperation, Gunmetal droplets of perspiration gather.   I take the bus – through Peckham.   Knickers lie flaccid in Primark. Like salted jellyfish – tentacle pink, grandmother mauve   briny in £2 racks of rainbow.   Peckham Rye lane is tight as damp and crammed as a coconut shell […]

ms. connings said that at fourteen years old, the sparks between them would of been enough to set the whole of middle america  blazing– leaving us non-believers standing in smoldering cornfields   she said the looks shared across ivy covered balustrades sent gossamer threads of dedication stronger than the tightropes in Ringling Bros   and […]