Other Lives

A belated round up: One poem included in Ink Sweat & Tear's The Twelve Days of Christmas , alongside such great poets as Penelope Shuttle, Simon Barraclough and David Morley; and another in the same webzine a few days earlier titled 'The Downs' .

The Dolls House The trees that grow from the nursery walls do not rustle in the breeze of an open window. The jaws of the wardrobe do not snap shut when a crane-fly bumbles into their waiting smile. But there is a shifting of furniture in the dolls house tonight, a slow dragging of objects across candle-lit rooms. The kitchen windows steam up and the unmistakable smell of melting plastic drifts from the chimney. You will notice tomorrow your new doll is gone. You will find her blonde hair lines a mouse nest in spring. The Reckless Sleeper All night he has been inventing a vocabulary – a mythology of cities built like a circuit board; a skeletal picture of where he’d like to belong. He is wrapped in a blanket of grey paint, and sometimes an apple will roll to the surface, sometimes a mirror, or an apple in the mirror. Sometimes a lion will lift a lazy paw and pull the blanket from the other side of the bed; leaving him exposed to the dark of the room. He walks on the surface of heaven, ...

Here is another review of 'Waiting for the Sky to Fall' at the excellent e-zine Ink Sweat & Tears .

Here are two new poems published last week by Ink Sweat and Tears (my first online).