all those sweet conspiracies

It seems like I am forever writing sentences that spin around the pivot of one or both of these words.

I write them back to front, upside down, even in a mirror, but they never make sense. One sounds long - a murmur, a rumble, an echo. The other is a soundproof door - closing me out or closing you in - I’m not yet sure which.

Then tonight I notice something new. Something previously hidden within these words. In remember there is ember. In forget there is forge. And so their eternal reliance on each other become clear. The forge where our cast iron tomorrows are wrought - fed by embers, those glowing fragments of dying yesterdays. Words within words should never be ignored.

Knowing this I tie these words to ribbons and let them hang above me while I sleep - an unlikely mobile that permeates my dreams. Everyday I wake up asking - is there something I need to remember, or something I’d best forget?

glowing bronze, steering on

There is one particular road, on the way between here and there. A road I use on the few days when I turn my back on the sea and head inland.

A road where the music in my head comes alive. It trebles in volume, clarity, intensity. It lifts me from the pavement and carries me along. Low to the ground but gliding.

A road of harmonious oppositions. On one side those houses that all look the same. You can hear their shouting from the outside - even with the windows closed. On the other a graveyard. Deep and crisp and even. I don’t feel fear or sadness when I look through the railings - I’ve always felt comfortably alone in a crowded place.


Maybe it’s the lack of traffic. Maybe it’s the size of the trees. But suddenly I see where I am - fifteen odd years on and I am back where I began. I think the trees were smaller then, or maybe I was taller. Before I grew up. I was a little thought, on a little bus, from a big school.

And even then I was wrapped safe within my world of sound, muffled by blankets of necessary noise. And I realise so little has changed. And so much. I glide on, bittersweet in the familiarity of being me.

The proverbs claim - ‘It is not the destination that is important, but the journey there’. I disagree.

random symmetry

I’m walking up a road named after distant royalty. It could be any road - it could be any name, on any day. Any day is any day until you name it today.

When I walk I don’t look ahead - that’s too predictable for me. Sometimes I look behind, but that’s risky, especially on a sunny day or a Sunday. Instead I look down at what’s beneath my feet. You’d be surprised at the things I see.


Today it’s a smattering of puzzle pieces. Bright blue against pavement grey. Abandoned jigsaw logic. All eager protrusions and holes. Begging to be fitted together - to combine into sense amid nonsense. Scattered outside a churchyard - but that’s beside the point.

It means nothing to me. Absurdity amid antipathy. But to someone somewhere this is everything that they search for. Perhaps the missing pieces are those that will complete and reveal them.

Or perhaps, more likely, these are the bits that had to be lost. To leave a window to look through the picture we build up piece upon piece, layer upon layer, day upon day. Now that these pieces are gone - from her frame to mine - she can look through the blue to what lies beneath.

listening to the silences

‘The words stick in my throat.
They gag me and make me choke.
They starve me of all breath
and leave me no strength to name them.’

Or so I said on 21st July 1997. And they have lingered there ineloquently for nine years - until this week, when they start to riot and rumble.

This is their time. Time to chew through the vines of compromise, the seaweeds of politeness that bind them up and tie them down. They sway in unison so the tide rises within and I swallow back against the force of the oceans they crawl from.

They strike up a chorus of protest that echoes and reverberates through my chambers and tubes, and emerges through my lips as a gurgle, a burble a bleat. The time is right. They are ripe. They are free. Spring is in the air and its time to flee the nest that was me.

Sick of huddling in the shady cave at the back of my throat, they run out and dart to the tip of my tongue - taut and primed like a spring board. I am strong, I am high, I am elastic. Take a deep breath - prepare to jump.

scattered truths

reap just what you sow

Prompted by a particularly bountiful harvest I thought I would share my quote taking habits with you.

When I read I amble along the lines, step by step, word after word. Sometimes I run and sometimes I jump over gaps, large and small, paragraph to paragraph. Always ready for the tricky manoeuvre of climbing from one page to the next - I keep moving onwards in my travels.

But sometimes I stop. I stand still and gaze at the lines I have just traversed. There is something about them that makes me linger. Makes me take out my pencil and paper camera and capture them for my album.

Maybe its just a handful of words that together spell beauty and wonder - that hold my breath. These I will save to return to at those times when I need to steady my exhalations.

Or maybe it’s a creature with little hooks, that has gripped me, and sticks to me - begging to be carried onwards, demanding my attention to return to him, to talk to him, to answer and ask more of him. These I will save as questions to return to, to think more of - to perhaps guide me inward, backward, onward.

even the rain bows down

The word meniscus doesn’t sound like its meaning.

It sounds like an oath - a dedication to cruelty or revenge. It sounds like the late night whisper of a young girl with evil eyes and sharp fingers. A girl who will tear a gap in the night sky - an everpresent white reminder that will burn until you are old.

A promise served up with ground glass, cloaked in innocence and strawberry scent. But a promise that the dark fairies cheer to hear. A pledge to have her revenge against the tooth fairy.

Never forgiven for collecting her first teeth. Her pure diamond edged incisors. No milk white meekness for her - hers were the teeth of the past. The bite of the primitive inside everyone.

She will wait. And one day, as sure as the moon hangs high, that hand will slide beneath her pillow - and she will reclaim what is hers, and yours, and more besides. And she will dance away, dressed in enamel and clattering and chattering and forever ready to bite.

gravity always wins

I am sitting with Hanif Kureishi. Its Wednesday. I am facing the sea, backlit by the first true sun of the year. Together we consider what it is to write - the whys as much as the hows. We currently ponder the difference between literature and philosophy - and Mr Kureishi points out -

‘Reading a novel was like being with a fascinating person who was showing you their world. For me, philosophy was another kind of concentration. Theories seemed ways of creating apprehension. I found that it is not always answers you find here, but better questions.’

Suddenly this delicious thought is interrupted by a hand forcing a small leaflet into my smaller hand. A leaflet printed on poor quality paper and emblazoned with a Hollywood technicolour vision of hell.

A handout from everyones favourite door-to-door seller of redemption. As I study the people who look like they have been lobotomized by an overeager dentist, or drugged by radioactive fruit - I even begin to distrust the moose - is there not something overly knowing in that velvet smile?

And then I realize I recognise this paradise. Its Oz. Resplendent fakery. Somewhere there is a little man behind a curtain manically pressing buttons to manufacture this grand illusion of peace and harmony. And like Dorothy I feel a little sick, I want to go home, back to the black and white of Kansas. Back to my free-thinking meander through these monochrome pages.

If thinking of better questions is suffering then damn me to an eternity of philosophy.

liquid diamonds

When she cries she pays back her debt to the waves. She lets little fishes swim across her face. She calls the seagulls to dive and soar. Theres drumrolls in the thunder and the angels start to roar.

When she cries she drops out questions. Whats in a tear? - a rainbow, a kiss, another year? When she cries she falls apart like broken glass - crystal clear for those held tight, held near or dear.

When she cries shes the spiral in your eye. A wonderland, a nightmare and nothing in between. I've seen the blind form a queue and pay with their eyes just to listen to her cry.

love letters

She told me to eliminate words. So I did. When she starts to speak I draw in my breath - a suck of a whoop and I have swallowed a couple of phrases and she is left mouthing like a mute on a street corner. No-one listens. No-one notices.

When she writes I follow along a line behind and lick the page where she has laid her thoughts. My rough tongue laps up the little letters and she is left all gappy, incoherent and blank. No-one understands. No-one cares.

the constant gardeners

This is the light garden. The day and night garden. The place we toil and tend. This is the garden of the sky. This is the tree of days. This is the place where we feed and water and breathe with laughter.

We are the gardeners - growing thin. Growing answers that are growing dim. Choked by weeds that curl around our ankles with their constant questions.

And here is the girl who sits in this garden - on a bench repainted many times - with a piece of blue wool tied to the armrest - to remind her of things best left forgotten. She doesnt like surprises - she doesnt like shocks. So we tend to keep the seasons in check. To give her somewhere safe to sit by herself. Inside herself. On a bench repainted many times.

water

fire

air

earth

natural history

Ideas are a rare breed -- an endangered species. Fascinating but troublesome, they need their environment in perfect balance to thrive. Otherwise they will fade before your eyes -- they will wink out like so many Tinkerbells.

This world wasn't made for ideas -- this world is changing and the idea is losing the habitat it depends upon. Ideas are growing thin -- bones as silhouettes and see-through flesh -- they fossilise moment by moment.

They need space - to become, to believe. Wooded clearings and deserted beaches - they crave abandoned theatres of sand and leaves. Places they can stretch and grow, and try out their tumbles and turns when no-one is watching them. They will only show themselves then they are well rehearsed.

They are getting breathless -- struggling to draw enough air to let them sing. Others are stealing their air -- people who misuse it. Voices who idle away vowels and consonants -- making words and phrases that amount to nothing. Talk so small it gets blown away on the breeze -- and even the dust doesn't wave it goodbye.

unnatural advocacy

The Devils Handbook

13 things you should know about the devil - fact or fiction - you decide

Don't be fooled into thinking he exists in the singular.

Don’t expect to hear him coming - sometimes he whispers while sometimes he roars.

He doesn't need an appointment.

He won't always answer when you call.

His breath smells of peppermint while his eyes are the colour of cloves.

Don't think you will never see him fall because he lives in the basement -- he has ladders that reach for the sky.

His house may be crumbling but the roof is propped up by a cruciform beam.

Sometimes he appears so vile as to turn your stomach, then turns on the charm to make you fall at his feet and ask for his hand as he asks for your heart -- on a plate for his supper or his tea.

He's a patchwork puppet of all your fears and dreams.

He is a woman in disguise.

Sometimes he crawls through the forest, sometimes he walks through the door.

Sometimes he sails the seas in a paper boat made from stolen love letters.

He’s at his most dangerous when he appears most vulnerable -- curled asleep on his bed of angel hair -- as while he sleeps sweetly he dreams a dream of being you.

they linger in the air

She asks me quietly - she asks me with perfect pronunciation - she asks me for a story. And this is what I give her.





A girl walks into a room. A room that used to be mine, before I moved on, before I left it to hang lonely on an unpainted wall. She throws open the windows and doors. She throws down a shabby suitcase. A suitcase that is always with her, that wears thin and needs a new patch every year.

She opens the case and climbs inside. She walks about within for a week or two - then emerges all fabric rebirth, fraying and hopeful with clutter in her hands. Some stamps, some coloured pieces of paper, a breadcrumb, a shell, and a feather. Souvenirs from the places she has been, from the palaces she has cleaned.

She lays these little treasures on her windowsill - to tempt you to a closer look. A tease to draw you into her room and her suitcase.

The sun stops by for a brief examination, but soon departs unimpressed - typical of his kind. A smirking bird claims the feather - an unlikely case of lost property - as the feather is white while he is grey.

beginning to see the light

When I play god I sit at my table - the one with one leg shorter than the others. I never start with a level playing field. I could fold the history of this world and tuck it under to even things up - but I like to watch you shake and slide and cling on for dear life.

When I play god I dress for the occasion. Wrapped in a blanket of grey shot through with streaks of light. I am perfumed with a rumble of ozone and vengeance.




I play make believe. I play lets pretend my puppets have free will. When I’m thirsty I drink tea and slurp up the dregs of your fortunes. Even though they make me choke, I laugh at my own little joke.

I play devils advocate. I give you a box of matches, stand back, and hold my breath while you burn. When I play god my puppets play dead.

heart of darkness

Horror is important. It reminds you that you can bleed. It scares the life out of you just to show you how safe you are.

Horror knows its business. It knows to keep things simple, to play with your childhood fears - being alone, in the dark, with a man behind the door.

Horror knows the power of pace. When to go slow, to make you think the danger is over, and when to bombard with sensory overload.

Horror knows to balance sound and its absence. The silence sets the scene for the scream and the screaming ceases for you to enjoy the silence - while it lasts…

Horror kills your desire to dream. It throws you over its shoulder and carries you to a locked room where it leaves you to wait and shake while the nightmares seep up through the floor.