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T H E M A P P E O P L E I see the neatly lettered names before me on a map affixed to the wall. They are a rota of communities, formed by those who came before us. The enclaves are well ordered and spacious in their two-dimensional, mercator projection. The boundary lines are linear and perpendicular and none give a hint to the complicated array of lives that reside within these neatly proportioned hereditary fiefdoms. One can imagine them to be what they are, tiny baronies with well defended borders and armed check points, with gates manned by stern looking para-military personnel.

...so my face looked worse than a Halloween jack-o-lantern! In other words, swollen. But let me tell you, I certainly remember being upset for having to miss such a delightful occasion.

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a poem about happiness

God, I'm good. Bl'm'n brilliant, I am! I mean, at everything, y'know?

I tried to feel his arse and found a spinal column. He has ginger skin. He wears contacts in daylight, but at night the glasses come out ' like two of grandma's glass coasters stuck in front of his eyes.

In the lounge, in Woodyard House, in Hartington, in Derbyshire, the hearth fire snapped and my friend, Alex Obelensky, son of runaway Russian nobles, asked me, "You wanna come and collect sheep-turds?"

He hates darkness. Light becomes essential. His demand for well-lit space is legendary. Holding the lump of clay he kneads, caresses, strokes it alive, turning an amorphous world into a globe. With iron callipers he measures

Light-hearted poem.