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Echo's Bones
[D]on’t rip up old stories – Henry Fielding, Tom JonesTim Martin ends his one-star review of Echo’s Bones in The Telegraph by labelling it a work of interest to “specialists and masochists only”; I...
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Poetry and Zen
Great Doubt, Great Awakening; small doubt, small awakening; no doubt, no awakening. – Zen proverbI favour poems written in plain English. And short. For many years it was rare for me to write a poem...
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The Millstone
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea (Matthew 18:6)Margaret...
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A Slight Trick of the Mind
“I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.” – Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone’“I have no understanding of love,” he said miserably. “I have never made claim that...
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The Book of Unknown Americans
I don’t need anyone’s pity. My life has been what it has been. It’s not a wonderful story, but it’s mine. – Cristina Henríquez, The Book of Unknown AmericansHow to tell a story: Well, you begin at the...
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Depth
Very deep. You should send that in to the Reader's Digest. They've got a page for people like you. ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyOne of the last things my first wife said to me...
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Rue End Street
I’ve had enough of grown-ups lying or not telling me the truth. I’m twelve years old. I can milk cows, for heaven’s sake. – Sue Reid Sexton, Rue End Street Sequels are a tricky business. It’s easy to...
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Smut: Two Unseemly Stories
"... How much better ... how much healthier ... had all these persons, these family members, been more candid with one another right from the start. – Alan Bennett, SmutSex is a part of life, in fact...
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The Appointment
[T]here's nothing to think about, because I myself am nothing, apart from being summoned. - Herta Müller, The AppointmentAfter Herta Müller won the Nobel Prize in 2009 I, I imagine like a number of...
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Seven years on
I’ve been doing this for seven years now. Blogging. That’s a long time. There aren’t many people who’ve blogged consistently over that long a time. So allow me a moment to pat myself on the back. PAT....
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The Awakening
I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something I am beginning to...
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Twilight of the Eastern Gods
Am I a gangster or murderer?Of what crime do I standCondemned? I made the whole world weepAt the beauty of my land.– Boris Pasternak from ‘Nobel Prize’This is both an old and an odd book. The copyright...
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The Waterproof Bible
[T]he only difference between a happy ending and a sad ending is where you decide the story ends – Andrew Kaufman, The Waterproof Bible Back in the good ol’ days there was real and unreal and that was...
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An arranged faith
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd – VoltaireI wrote a poem back in 1996 about beliefs: THE NATURE OF BELIEFSThe thing about beliefs isthey don't need to be true. That's not...
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The Wall
The crows have risen, and circle screeching over the forest. When they are out of sight I shall go to the clearing and feed the white crow. It will already be waiting for me. – Marlen Haushofer, The...
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You & Me
HAMM: We're not beginning to... to... mean something?CLOV: Mean something! You and I, mean something! (Brief laugh.) Ah that's a good one!-- Endgame, Samuel BeckettIt is tempting—and numerous esteemed...
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Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?
Diseases desperate grown,By desperate alliances are relieved, Or not at all. (Hamlet, IIII.ii.)Books written solely in dialogue divide people so I wasn’t surprised to see a lot of one- and two-star...
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The optics of poetry
Poetry is the art of saying two (or more) things at once and making them one. – Richard Wakefield, 'Poets display writing translucent and opaque', Seattle Times, 10 April 2005In the opening chapter to...
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The H-Bomb and the Jesus Rock
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the western hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a...
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The Year of Magical Thinking
I wanted to get the tears out of the way so I could act sensibly. – Joan Didion,The Year of Magical ThinkingI began reading this book the day after my goldfish died. We’d had him for eight or nine...
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