The hangman shakes the hand of the convicted, measuring his weight. The priest who has no stomach for these things holds tightly to the shaking holy Bible in his hands. Last night the murderer confessed his sins; confessed to him. There was not one he hadn’t heard so many times before, from the judge who [...]
The tip of your cigarette dances through the air: quick-quick-slow & ready to go. The rising smoke’s just hovering, happy to hang around for another short while. Today was not a good day. The buzzards were circling low. I only came in here to drink and drink, give up on thought for now. (The tip [...]
 Storm the night and break the Gates of Heaven. This the whisper in the trees that turn their leaves to the rumours of spring. Now done with death and done with grieving, they drive their roots into the waiting soil. Hold her, hold her tight. This the clamour of the cranes, returning from the [...]
(For C: Each day you do become more beautiful to me) What hand What tremors raised these mountains, filled these seas? What forces tore my clay apart; remade it into something new – something strange, and raw, and bleeding? The hand that made you made my bed from broken stars and fractured light.
The nails of the tree scrape the window at night. The clouds are keeping very still and the face of the moon will soon fill out with promises of angry blood. Cats fight in the dark over souls that dared not seek new territories. Like mice they flee and are disassembled. In bedrooms blankets are [...]
Enola Gay, deliver us from madness. Cleansing fire from Heaven, take our Sodom hearts and our Gomorra tongues – and make us pay. For we have sinned; oh, how we’ve sinned against our jealous Lord. Tear up the Covenant: we are not worthy of the rainbow and Your light. Send us Your son, Your only [...]
For R. It’s four in the morning. The square is empty; the snow lies untouched. I see your breath: a white glow that almost enfolds me. Your hand warms my hand. I look up, from the green-moulded statue of Jan Hus, past the chimneys on the rooftops and the spires of the cathedral, to [...]
Rebirth is a bitch. It hurts like Hell and it would be quite simply the most humiliating thing that could ever happen to a person, were it not for the fact that it gets worse with each new incarnation. There is, quite frankly, nothing worse than being reborn. What was that you said? Death? [...]
No suffering is unimportant. There is no greater good; no units more important than the individual soul. Not need. Need is a myth invoked to tell us there are ends to meet, that disregard the others. Not love (not necessarily.) What most of us call love is too self-centred to be trusted and too vain. [...]
In slow, slow motion the stick comes down: a man lies bleeding in the street. Soon the blood will stop its desperate running. It’s not a sight or sound uncommon to the city. Cars go by and sirens call for witnesses, who need not carry red-striped canes to tell the cops they didn’t see a [...]
1 The lone bird flies too high to cast a shadow on the land. The desert down below lies still, lies simmering. A stone clad in a haze of white and heat leans into a wind that doesn’t show. 2 The branches of the tree hang low and almost touch the river. A stone breaks [...]
That evening, the shadow of the olive tree came down from the hill, where bits of cork and crumbs of bread were carried away by ants. Our revenant embraces, knotted and dry as wood, flickered in the ashes of some fire. Places to go (a chorus whisper) places to go – in haste and time. [...]
(For Renata) “Come.” I can hear you but I am so far away… (…I am Columbus on the foredeck, listening to the sound of an unfamiliar surf. Seagulls draw lazy circles in the sky. I think of all the things that are so far away from here and from this moment: the carts that [...]
Just in this moment – not looking at you I can see the things that I would love to do: to kiss a naked shoulder, touch and tremble – trembling lips: my lips would never be at home with yours. Forever strangers, they would meet in moist, exotic places. So easy, again, to get carried [...]
Ink becomes crude oil; my thoughts like seagulls, coated in this thick black waste. What makes it so damned hard to say I love you? Fuck the seagull and the sea, the tanker split and bowing like a dream come true. (Now would be the perfect time to quote a bit – give rein: well-educated [...]
The elders were inside, deep down in their bunkers. They couldn’t bear to watch the sky during this week. However broad and deep this new sky was, all eyes would always travel to that one small pinpoint of bright light: the latest star to join the endless, silent choir of night’s bright passengers. [...]
It is the night, the silent shroud that calls upon these images of soldiers, locked in trenches, waiting for the order to arrive, tomorrow or tomorrow: to rise and leave the safety of the dull and horrid clay, the company of the newly dead, and join the screaming and the silent; those who were hung [...]