From the point-of-view of the Step-Mother (i) It begins in a red-lit pub glazed with cigarette-smoke. He sits alone, eyes hung brown thick with the gravy of old love. The froth on his beer is drying a watery ring hugs the bottom of his glass. He does not tell me of his daughter her beauty … Continue reading Snowite (Parts i-iii)
in the river she casts shadow and light a double edged beauty the whim of nature in cagey opposites delighting
the quiet flatulence of tyres on gravel embarrassing manoeuvres
Slim and slick, as stick of cinnamon. Like segmented silk, your scales slip off in shimmering shuck. I discover your skin in skeins of grasses silver and slinky and flimsy as fuss. I see you slither so stately, strangely un-shamed by your undressed state. Smooth disclosure of sensuous sides is simply standard snakelore. How I … Continue reading Body Confidence
In seashell crevice I have perspired or shivered, wound up tight under the gristle of my own fearful odour - the stink of mortality’s bell tolling and tolling singeing reverberations. All around me the huddle of love and yet still I felt a loner time's slowest ripples inching Today at last my buttoned grip slipped … Continue reading Relief
Iridescent planet pop its rainbows squashed into cork tiles a child's high-pitched squeal
the little girl with the gobstopper plays chess giant pieces she must bend her knees to carry her brother almost knows the rules and tells her what to do when a stream of watered down milkshake runs through the board "you've already got wet" he says "at the beach" he watches the liquid puddle around … Continue reading Mogo (a coastal town)
My reflection is under threat like a bilby or a platypus. Sightings are getting rarer. In photos there’s a me I don’t remember with long legs and short shorts and shoes without socks before the spiders came and spun blue webs around my calves in thickly knotted thread Back then I dyed my hair (even … Continue reading My Reflection
I am awake watching gaps in leaves seeing woolly mammoths those creatures of the past, preserved in ice and mud I must not wallow like them for ten thousand years but leap up and shake myself celebrate the fallen crystals shattering about my toes This is my truth penned like knife strips through a canvas … Continue reading Insomnia
“Wine is one of the most civilised things in the world...” but why? Civilisation is a human construct as is wine. It’s no more civilised than stainless steel which we also touch to our lips and which builds our bridges over those uncivilised rivers. This was written in response to dVerse (again belated) Quadrille #125. … Continue reading Hemingway says:
