Issue Eight

Contents

On Sandwiches

A neat, snug study on a winter's night,   A book, friend, single lady, or a glass Of claret, sandwich, and an appetite,   Are things which make an English evening pass              … Read article

Reading Between the Lines

My latest list is a to-do list. I used bullet points (to add a special air of organisation) and ranked each item in order of importance (ditto). It is a short list and I have done none of the things o… Read article

Rust and Crystal

In moments of becoming and subsidence, as flowers come to bud, iron rusts, or a stone by a well wears smooth from the hands that rest there, they sing of their being, here and now. This coming and goi… Read article

Three Poems

The Prison Prayers of Manasseh Manasseh, vagrant, second sonOf Charles and Freedom LeeKneels on the lightless flinten floorOf Kingston jail, Surrey: ‘Who was Grai?  My poor dad’s motor.  Who … Read article

Graven Names

Glasgow It’s the height of it, I think, that’s so remarkable. A city on a hill, Glasgow Necropolis, where the dead overlook the living. I cross the bridge from the cathedral, covered up while wo… Read article

Over the Wires

The corridor that leads to the old incinerator is cold and the floor holds a thin film of water. There is a pile of scrap metal — including several dismantled children’s bikes — in the centre of… Read article

Seabirth

Turning left on Driftwood, he saw the sea and then he saw the trail. It wasn't quite a bloody trail of violence, the kind you see after a bar brawl when a battered nose spots a shameful line to the vi… Read article

The Quarry

The light moved greyly over the sand. They hadn’t set out until after three, frustrated once again in their battle with the day. It is difficult being on holiday though, everyone knows that. The wre… Read article

Letterpress

Letterpress printing is an immersive process. Days pass in inky smudges of concentrated work. ‘I see that real printing will devour one’s entire life’, wrote Virginia Woolf while experimenting w… Read article

In the Park

In Moscow again, treading the sweating asphalt in the unforgiving sun. Rivers of cars flow round the Kremlin, girdling the walls in a cloud of exhaust fumes which seeps into the underpasses. This is n… Read article