Arts Articles
Extract from The Convict’s Appeal
Still, surely it deserves a thought, An awful, solemn pause, Whether the Creed, by Christians taught, Can justify their laws? Which doom not death alone, but – far As human power is given, Thus place before the Almighty’s bar, Man – unprepar’d for Heaven!
Dinosaurs
It was not from the tongues of angels that came the whine of exocets intent on harm to tribesmen, comrades, friends. The deaths are classified ‘collateral’: puffs of dust across a landscape of ‘we have no option but to…’
A bypass ticket online
Failing sight, loss of hearing, Sleepless night, muddled thinking Pad for leaks, dressings for ulcers And painful feet which can’t be mended. You don’t think about getting old. It won’t happen to you, not yet. Not yet, and when it does you think That you will go...
A Friday morning in November
They lay buried in white dust for two hours A table flying from the blast settled Across their bodies as they drifted just As in a normal bed time calling them To sleep. The city burned an orange glow Warm in the night; occasional rumbles Marked the distance as in...
Mediterranean at El Palo, Malaga
A warm evening. The low voice of waves against the sand. Inevitable. A bridge. Here you can cross. Here there are no walls. No custom posts. No defining flag. No halls for inspecting the luggage of one’s life. No pack smuggled over. No flight. No call to declare. No...
The wasp nest
I am your mother; you were torn from me at birth and at that bloody moment the fear of losing you fluttered through my memory like wasp-wings building their future.
‘For younger readers: Balthasar’s Cloak’, by Geoffrey Weeden, from December 22, 1972
In a church in Ravenna in Italy there is a very old mosaic picture. It shows the three Wise Men, Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar, carrying their gifts to Bethlehem. Balthasar wears a rich purple cloak with a gold hem and a jewelled clasp. This story is about Balthasar’s cloak. ...
Nuclear family Christmas
There are lights in all the houses, she says to herself, (no one else being available). Standing deep, in discarded wrapping paper, by the window in a darkened room, she stares…
The tall red candles
‘The holly bears a bark as bitter as any gall.’ – Old Carol
Between
Between bullet and flesh, a spirit rising like mist, mostly unseen. Between the thought and the deed a sliver of time that makes the earth quake.