siódma fala    this is where she lives this is her house this cycle of a song and dance see how she sways and swirls whirls whorled in a world aroused around and around the flow the waves count them   count the ways cascade   cataract   maelstrom   drought the confluence of water echoed by the wind tornadoes stretched to derechos    the arabesque flamenco and a tango she can do the fandango    solo ostinato      there’s no control then there is    the calm   the ..read more

family album    and a here with a granddad unknown unknowable indefinite epithets unilluminated a stern expression a serious face of his age deftly inscrutable a granny too indistinct crossing a distance yet focused a deadpan gaze into a stillborn life that stares back like a knife then a father young almost handsome smug with potential the future a wild animal to be captured and caged   beside a mother inside her beauty peering out with uncertain apology in a smile that never quite reaches her eyes and an Imago windswept with the then and the now caught in t ..read more

 shoplifting    we’ve all given it a go the gang identity the group skin draped in insolence and arrogance all that belonging that longing to be in the chorus the song and dance of adolescence that becomes a one-man show   how the mind becomes body the somatic awareness of self that sudden sweaty existential voice the dare the dread that life upon the shelf to take to pocket to make that choice to move to the music   the choreography …   and breathless the song ending and the buzzing adrenal silence that some can never switch off  the trinket in the hand ..read more

Love was    Love was a party two pumped up balloons set free bumping on the ground clumsy with gravity dead air left to deflate   Love was a meal haute cuisine portions like leftovers pushed around the plate all the ingredients you learned to hate the dishes left stacked in the sink   Love was a dream an IKEA bed unmade   rough wood sheets rucked and stained with sweat and blood an atlas left unwashed unchanged   Love was and is a door   unhinged   ..read more

  Lazarus (post-mortem)    Imago remembers her mother caresses the skin of memories feels its tightness the hair rising at the nape of her neck yet there are folds and creases in the story where the narrative is hidden or erased those movements the mathematics the grammatical elisions of cause and effect which have been wrapped in the warp and weft of time trapped like bubbles in the blood bending thought the iron bar of identity reshaping the curve squaring the circle the slice of pie    the integer the Fraction the transcendental I never escaping ..read more

  snowman     Imago watches snow fall like slow rain each flake unique a six-sided trick shaped by its journey to cluster on the surfaces of the earth compound as simple as water a herd animal sheltering in a storm the shrugging on of another skin a snowball fight an Olympic event a snowman atop a mountain the reaching of a peak an iceberg on the tip of the tongue a glacier as slow as time an avalanche as quick an age advances retreats reveals a fingerprint like a fossil a Christmas card the icing on the cake   How the heart melts ..read more

  such a thing       as a cake there on a white plate untouched there’s some kind of cake a fruit charlotte the succulence of apple with berries bleeding into the meringue mixed in with the crispy pastry crumble a work of art colours texture working in the mind on the palate the tongue the soft gush of saliva the plain white canvas of the plate I take a fork break off a piece but am stopped the hostess leaning in over me her hand holding down my own a cake fork she says insistent replacing the fork in my hand with a cake fork and I am stopped for a moment a ..read more

  clear-out    the skip arrives   unloaded like a burden metal against metal   the machinery the grinding mechanics of what is still yet empty with the attitude of a coffin chosen but unfilled sturdy   then the work begins   years that have carelessly gathered in boxes overfilled and spilling in black binbags stuffed bursting and split amongst webs forlorn and tattered are dragged and heaved through opened windows   to fall   cascades of childhoods a honeymoon and holidays of clothes outgrown cast-offs and hand-me-downs the bro ..read more

  Exuviation     Imago wakes one day to wonder if the soul Of the child will accompany the soul of the adult into heaven For in a dream from which he awoke in a sweat His younger selves lay upon the floor discarded Were draped over chairs drying had been folded carefully Then stuffed into chests of drawers were hanged In cluttered wardrobes unwashed unironed innocent Blooded   bloodied and fleshless   price paid Disingenuous unsung Imago shivers in the skin he is yet to shed Naked and cold with no hands to hold ..read more

  onstage       there’s all that waiting in the wings other people’s time   for you nothing just a twinkle in someone’s eye and then led to what you believe is centre stage not yet spotlit   the lights coming up taking an age the crowd restless and so many extras and those first-night nerves that last a lifetime even with all that prompting and such a short run   a premiere an unending rehearsal ending in Act VI   the curtain closed the auditorium empty the stage in darkness the caretaker’s turning of the key   ev ..read more