The website of writer and poet Daniel Bennett
The river is high these early hours, a fine mist reminding us of the Ghost. Someone coughs inside a distant cell, someone chants matins, somewherea renegade brother brews beer.Reports of plague illuminate our books,while the sandstone walls weep like open wounds. Young friars play football amongst bean canesand wild garlic, daydream of sunon white fences, earthly mores. Read more on Allegro … Continue reading The Monks
‘They were really quite sorry in their way for the lonely, unpopular old fellow, whom everyone shunned, and at whom all the dogs barked singularly. But business is business, and to a robber whose soul is in his profession, there is a lure and a challenge about a very old and very feeble man who … Continue reading Unpopular Old Fellow
'As I listened to her lovely voice a grey mass which rapidly grew more distinct loomed up in front, and the horn rang out joyously through the tumult of hounds and falcons. A torch glimmered at a gate, a light streamed through an opening door, and we stepped upon a wooden bridge which trembled under … Continue reading Hounds and falcons
‘Nikolay Ivanovich Stupin lives in our house. He has a theory that everything is smoke. But in my view not everything is smoke. Maybe even there’s no smoke at all. Maybe there’s really nothing. There’s one category only. Or maybe there’s no category at all. It’s hard to say.’ On Phenomena and Existences, Daniil Kharms
'Ouside, a section of the building has collapsed, blocking the street. As they skirt the rubble, a pack of wild dogs rounds the corner. Billy holds up a hand, palm out, and the dogs are deflected as if they have hit a wall-- they slide sideways, one throwing a last yipe of terror and defiance … Continue reading Wild Dogs
‘Lewis and Benjamin gambolled ahead, put up grouse, played finger-football with rabbit droppings, peered over the precipice onto the backs of kestrels and ravens and, every now and then, crept off into the bracken, and hid. They liked to pretend they were lost in a forest, like the Twins in Grimms’ fairy-tale, and that each … Continue reading In The Green Shade
The other night, coming back from work, we came across an incident at our local tube station. It was a drizzly, wet evening, the end of the kind of winter day that puts a chill inside you. Queues of people were backing up at turnstiles. Armed police patrolled the inside of the station. A mobile … Continue reading Eastworld
'Pollen-skinned pond's edge by the dock where we stood and tried to describe it-- as yellow as the memory of yellow, a memory of light without context. We gave up and just looked. And walked further.' from 'Brookeside', Joseph Massey
Absence Club 