‘They have the most lunatic hopes, these beasts; they’re just fools, utter fools. That’s why we like them; they are our dogs; finer dogs than any of yours . Watch this now, a camel died last night and I have had it brought here.’ Jackals and Arabs, Franz Kafka
Blog
What The World Wants To Tell You
'You are weaving through your life when a plane falls from the sky. You could not have prepared for this moment, but you approach it as you would any other: you walk slowly through it, trying hard to listen to what the world wants to tell you.' 'Crash', Amanda Davis Of course, Amanda Davis wrote … Continue reading What The World Wants To Tell You
Things We Lost In The Fire
'In the darkness, in among the barely visible vegetation, the fireflies shone. I hate when people call them lightning bugs; firefly is a beautiful word. Once, I caught a bunch of them in an empty mayonnaise jar, and I realised how ugly they really are, like cockroaches with wings. But they've been blessed with the … Continue reading Things We Lost In The Fire
The Frostman
Last night I dreamed of the Frostman again. I sat at a bank of desks in an open-plan office, talking to someone seated next to me. We had been making a joke, when the Frostman appeared: a pale, disheveled man, white stubble washing along his cheek like mica dust. He wore a long white cat, … Continue reading The Frostman
Cloth
As we boarded the train, I noticed the white of a dog collar under the man's scarf. Yet moments earlier, I had watched as he stood at the centre of the doors, impeding the passengers who needed to alight from the train. We sat down at the same bank of seats, and during our short … Continue reading Cloth
R.B. Kitaj
The paintings of R.B. Kitaj will always been twinned in my mind with the poetry of Lee Harwood, for the rather basic reason that the cover of the Paladin edition of Harwood's Crossing the Frozen River included a detail from Kitaj's 'A Study For The World's Body'. I brought that Lee Harwood book with me … Continue reading R.B. Kitaj
Lemon Meringue Pie
I've spent the summer looking over old work, returning to a past self and his observations, reclaiming the writing from his caprices. In those years, I wrote in a white hot state, as though a clock were ticking, and I had to beat it. It was hardly sustainable; it was hardly writing, really, more of … Continue reading Lemon Meringue Pie
