The website of writer and poet Daniel Bennett
The black car squatted on Stockwell Road. Billy Vehement clocked it on his way back from Brixton tube station. The regular gang stood outside the Portuguese delicatessen across the road from his flat, swapping jokes over bottles of Super Bock. Traffic tore up the tarmac; a rogue gull dawdled over the skating park. Billy could only … Continue reading Cappuccino Leather
https://youtu.be/7DpQHs8G1K8 My crime novel, My First London Dream, is now available on Kindle. Hack actor, ex-convict and ex-agent provocateur, Billy is hired by his mentor Peter Priest, a retired director of schlock, who had been advising Felix on the film industry in the weeks before his disappearance. Set in 2007, months before the financial crash, … Continue reading My First London Dream
'The main thing now for success was to get away from the coast and gain the middle of the gulf before day broke. The Isabels were somewhere at hand. “On your left as you look forward, senor,” said Nostromo, suddenly. When his voice ceased, the enormous stillness, without light or sound, seemed to affect Decoud’s … Continue reading Circumambient Darkness
Later that evening, Mitchell returned to his apartment. He'd brought a bag of tools from the cabin, to drill a fitting on the wall for the painting he'd found in the Old Room. He stood by the window, examining it carefully in the final light of the sunset. He imagined that the artist had based … Continue reading Incomplete
'Here's what I dream most about now. The dogs. Trying to get my numb fingers around the tricky latches of their chains. Cracking open the ice in their bowls so they can have a drink. In my dreams, I do it with a stick, or the business end of an ax, or the heel of … Continue reading The Last Bend Of The Lake
In the old days, I'd have found better ways of using the time. I longed to take myself off to a remote place-- an Artic radio station, a mountain lookout, or -- in grander dreams-- the epic loneliness of a spacecraft. The gentle persistent of daily routines. The making of coffee, the delicacy of chocolate. … Continue reading The Great Release
'A storm was moving into the valley now and the rain had begun to fall and the wind sang down through the vines and he listened for what the house could say to him. So many had claimed that this valley spoke to them and maybe it has spoken to me too but I don't … Continue reading The Valley
I visited an old acquaintance, a performance poet who had left the city some years before, and moved to the wilds of the north. Our friendship had always been tentative and slightly awkward, in that I had little respect for his work, and he, I knew, felt the same about mine. Still, after many years … Continue reading Automated Houses
'There is a story about a woman who goes into labor when the attending physician is tired. There is a story about a woman who is herself born too early. There is a story about a woman whose body clung to her child so hard they cut her to retrieve him. There is a story … Continue reading Raindrops In A Pond
At one time or another, the cottage appeared to have been the residence for a landscape painter: Mitchell uncovered scraps of oil-soaked material, brushes, and dried-out paints, and on a set of shelves at the back of the room, he found a pile of canvases. One of the pictures showed a coastal scene, a wide … Continue reading Canvases
