The website of writer and poet Daniel Bennett
'Vorster watched the paraplegics racing their wheelchairs around the basketball field. Two years earlier, while driving home one evening, he had seen Cosmos 253 breaking up on re-entry. For half a minute the sky had been filled with hundreds of glowing fragments, like an immense air force on fire. Vorster stood up as the audience … Continue reading Particle Physics
Penny Falls Burnt sugar, breezy heat. White pollen and the carsick feeling of newly minted shame. It was gambling’s first twitch, in a summer amusement park,as I kept pace with a friend who cast away guilt moneywith easy prodigality. The arcade pumped like an … Continue reading Blue Nib
On a short trip to Kiev, we found our way to the Lavra, a monastery close to the river. White walls and cobblestone streets, a cathedral rebuilt brick by brick after being destroyed by Soviet partisans. The remains of the old wall had been sealed in place, a memento, a relic. Of course, relics were … Continue reading Catacombs
The perfect city predated the city. It lay in a hectare of damp fields, formed out of pylons and the reach of old oaks along the hedgerows. I wandered from door to door, persuading neighbours of the value of a life without cars. Future roads superimposed over old roads, the routes, the hideouts. An act … Continue reading Memories of the Perfect City
'Anyway, just at that moment, while I was still running around, I heard one of the women say, Jesus, the dog, the dog, and I thought of telepathy, I thought of happiness, and I was afraid that the woman who had spoken, whichever one it was, would go out and look for the dog.' Roberto … Continue reading The Dog, the Dog
Vapour A road trip. That old saloon: deep bluefinned in a quaint English way,more sea bass than marlin. No destination.We were testing freedom, heading out across the fen landscape, where aircraftbuzzed tree crowns and farm buildingsand tore away, stitching trailsacross our temporary portion of sky. Read more online at Ink, Sweat and Tears
'We who were not there cannot possibly understand how they came like flies: swarming up all of a sudden and buzzing over the horizon, thickening the sky with their heavy shadows. We were playing poker at Jimmy's-beer sweating, fans going round and round, the sound of pool clicking the moments by. Everyone admits it: we … Continue reading Louisiana Loses Its Cricket Hum
We bought fresh orange juice on the street and moved away from the main square, deeper into the barrio. The building lay behind a high iron fence, the gate dismantled to leave the way clear. A hard sun. Ash-coloured walls sliced with red aerosol daubs, that hurried, runic script which is the same in any … Continue reading At The Palazzo
‘Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.’ High Rise, JG Ballard
‘It is exceedingly thoughtless to send a young boy out on an urgent and important errand into a night like that, because in its semi-obscurity the streets multiply, becoming confusing and interchanged. There open up, deep inside a city, reflected streets, streets which are double, make-believe streets. One's imagination, bewitched and misled, creates illusory maps … Continue reading Make-Believe Streets
