Cherrypicked stories

Innocent and still proven guilt-free.

"You could never embarrass me. Celine gave a sudden grin to a grandpa standing nearby, opened her tearstained mouth wide, and shouted. "I'M JESUS CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIST!"

For two weeks I added powdered violets to his coffee. I smeared lipstick around his nipples as he slept. As for his hair, I raked it with a paddle brush and rinsed it in cider vinegar until it shone like currency.

You'll see a great change in him, his sister said, allowing him to go first into the ward. She didn't say - specially since you haven't been here since last year - but it was implied. In the high side hospital bed, Brian's father appeared to be already dead. Waxen, bluish eyelids, sweeping glossy black eyebrows, fine prominent nose. He seemed his old handsome self again, spruced up, ready to meet his maker No longer the dishevelled, unkempt, unshaven, huddled bundle, chain smoking in front of the television, lost in the imaginary community he had come to rely on for company, resenting unwanted visitors who asked him silly questions during his favourite programmes

prose

The head and shoulder shots were ok, she said, but they didn't like the full length ones, they said next time tell your friend to focus on the subject and not the background. I didn't go to the second lesson, I said, I was barred out. I told you that.

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A seemingly high-brow but surprisingly base poem.

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