Cherrypicked stories

When she hadn't known his name or recognised him, staring through him and down the long ward of coughing women, he went out and spent most of his giro in bars and pubs, and found himself dancing with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Bobbing and moving in the loud sweaty darkness, he shouted into her ear "My mother's got cancer, she's in the hospital. Now.

For now, the ancients brave the park but soon, overnight, when the ice appears (puddles tightly capped by vindictive out-of-work glaziers) the park will be deserted except for me: I am young with these lungs and I hope you remember the war or something.

This is always the worst part. As you pass the park, the street dissolves into little more than an alley. It's here I was born, here between the clothes-lines and the chipped brickwork of some long-forgotten Minister For Housing. "Let's abolish the slums," and everyone agreed because it had to be done, no-brainer. But this ain't no concrete paradise, is it, Mr. Tory? It's a trackmark on the arm of the town, the stab wound in the gut of this body. Broken glass battles with broken teeth to pave the street, the council saved on paint by using human blood.

This sestina will make you think I am great.

I found you under my desk Cleaning my shoes and begging for mercy I kept you there all day With treats and threats And a crack of my multi-tailed feline friend And an imperious point of my finger As you tried to climb out

You knew I would still be awake, sitting up in bed with my laptop, the only light left on in the house. You: reader, critic, appreciator, lover. I cannot tell you exactly what time it is; I can't tell you the day or the month. It is autumn: there are fallen leaves going soggy in the gutter when I walk home. I bought black leather boots today ' that is how I will measure the time.

(unfinished)

I think it has taken this long for the seriousness of all this to dawn on me. People often comment that I look younger than I am and I do. There is something about my smooth skin and slouching pose and delicate hands that flutter like moths, that does not betray my nearly three decades. But inside I am older, the smoke of half my life churning through blood vessels, choking vitality and coating my thoughts with dusty shadows. I can't hide my inside from the outside for very much longer, so I will have to repair it. Clean it out, air it, give it a new coat of paint, flesh out the half-life to give it substance that other people can see.

poem