A Very British Lunch in 50 Words

Nanna farted blowing out her 90th birthday candles. She blew the ‘zero’ right out. The ‘nine’ was more stubborn. I stood to extinguish it with my thirty-two-year-old lungs, thumping the table to hide the flatulence, spilling everyone’s cups of tea into their saucers. Nobody said a word.

My Sandman

You turn the pages, admiring the impermanence of it all. No effort spared, yet these works will collect the dust just as the skirting boards will continue to grow their greyish coat long after you are gone. But it is right and good. And so you cling to it, feeling its solid weight as a gentle pressure, a…

Grace

Murakami’s disembodied narration, spoken in your language.

Silent whistling in your ears like the sound of the sea; proof you are awake though the night is thick and black in the window. (Your ears never whistle in dreams.)

Thoughts of gaslights linger in the glow of the electric street lamp.

#1

Reunion–
wine-stained lips 
belie our nonchalance.

Breakfast

Frozen cherries in the morning. How they hurt my teeth! Every now and then a cold hammer strikes the craggy surface of a molar and shockwaves reverberate along rows of pearly white.

A good book (Ulysses this time) and a cup of molasses tea.

Last night’s tantrum is over now, absorbed in a bowl of overly-salted porridge.

How it starts

Fingers of God. Backstays of the sun. Cloud breaks. Jacob’s ladders. Ropes of Maui. Shafts of light.

Tears that tickle the corner of your eyes but refuse to spring forward.

A bounteous mint crop.

What it is

The privilege to be lazy. You’ve got dust under your nails.

Skin cells accumulating on a computer keyboard, marking time so you don’t get lost.

Fingers that move when asked. Creases on a palm: Three lines. No, four.

Curiosity at the fourth line.

How it ends

Gentle suffocation, rising in the morning and subsiding by noon.

Flesh contracted and taut.

A wistful look. A failure. Alone.

Innate

The recoil from her blandness when we meet after so many years.

Picking out his face in the crowd and realising I do not feel joy.

Eggs.

And then …

Artificiality

Artifice

Art