Broken Glass

  “Kenneth,” said Mrs. Mackie, once the two boys had finished their drinks. “Why don’t you go and show Josh the beach?” This phrase stuck in Josh’s mind, as it struck him as an odd thing to say. He’d seen the beach. Kenneth, showing no visible sign of enthusiasm, got up and did as he was told.

The two of them walked along the shore for a while, looking to see if anything interesting had been washed up (if it had, Josh couldn’t remember). There was a shapeless carcass some yards away, on the sand. It was hard to see, what with the sunlight shining on the water behind it. A flock of seagulls were milling round it. Kenneth picked up a stick and sent it spinning through the air towards it. Josh thought it was wrong – he’d been brought up not to do that kind of thing – but he didn’t say anything. If Kenneth was happy throwing sticks at birds, there was no telling what he might happily do to him. The birds swirled out of the way before returning to the carcass.

On the way back, Kenneth picked up a bigger stick and started swinging it to and fro, knocking pebbles and lumps of kelp out of the way as he did so. “I’m only doing this because my mother told me to, you know,” he said.

The next day, Kenneth came round to call for him. After the day before, Josh was surprised and not that pleased to see him. He wasn’t sure Kenneth was someone he wanted to spend time with, but he didn’t really know how to say ‘no’ and anyway, before he could say anything, his mother, seeing things – as she saw it – panning out the way she hoped they would, had shooed him enthusiastically out of the house.

An excerpt from a short story, Broken Glass (a nine minute read). You can read it here, at Spillwords Press.

The Retreat

You can read my short story, The Retreat, here, at International Times (IT). A soul-searching billionaire heads to the seaside in search of a change of direction. It's a five minute read (there's lots of other stuff to read in IT, too!). Artwork by Rupert Loydell.

Fluxus

This week's International Times is a Fluxus special bumper issue. For anyone reading this who doesn't know, Fluxus was an interdisciplinary experimental art movement in the 1960s and 1970s (for more, watch Giles Whitehead's film. How to Become a Fluxus Artist, or read Rupert Loydell's review, The Impossible and the Improptu). There's work by Yoko Ono and John Cage, including a Death Metal cover of Cage's 4'33". And do pay a visit to Simon Collings' unmissable Air Museum.

And - nothing particularly to do with Fluxus - I've got a poem, Islander, in there, too, somewhere.

https://internationaltimes.it/

Arboretum for the Hunted

Fred D'Aguiar, for those who don't know, was one of the leading writers – along with Linton Kwesi Johnson, Bejamin Zephaniah and David Dabydeen – giving voice to marginalised groups in Britain in the 1980s. As the blurb on the back of his recent pamphlet, Arboretum for the Hunted says,  'what is striking about about this chapbook is how much keeps him dreaming, even in places and situations where many imaginations would stumble and falter in the face of ... relentless violence.' You can read my review of the book here, at Stride Magazine.

Reports from the Deep End

Reports from the Deep End is a collection of short stories inspired by the work of J.G. Ballard. Although he's famous for his visions of urban dystopia (his name has even morphed into the adjective 'Ballardian'), there's so much more to him than that. For example, as a science fiction writer, instead of writing stories about outer space, he turned, instead, to the 'inner space' of the human mind, blurring the distinction between SF and literary fiction. Then there's the exotic locations and the non-specific, slightly surreal aura of colonialism you sometimes get, that no doubt springs from his childhood experiences of Shangai and living in a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War. 

There are over thirty stories in the collection, which includes work by Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Michael Moorcock (who contributes a new Jerry Cornelius story). You can read my review of the book here, in International Times.

Wound is the Origin of Wonder

The poems in Maya C Popa's book, Wound is the Origin of Wonder, ask big questions: what can we learn about ourselves from the religious systems  and mythologies we created in the past? (Whether they're believable or not isn't the point here - Popa is looking for patterns and archetypes). What's the world like when we're not looking at it? What would it be like to be inside someone elses head? It's risky territory. Poets must 'go in fear of abstractions', as Ezra Pound put it. But then all artists who create successful art take risks. Does Maya C Popa pull it off and, if so, how? Yes, she does - but it's just that here and there, I found myself wondering. Then again, one thing I learned from reading the book was that the joy is in the wondering. You can read my full review of it here at Stride Magazine.

Requiem for Bioluminescence

There's the ghost of a story running through Aaron Kent's collection, Requiem for Bioluminescence. It's about an owl, a fox and a submariner (Kent was, for a while, a submarine SONAR operator: almost, in itself, a metaphor for the kind of poet he is, delving into the subconscious the way he does). Influenced by JH Prynne and jazz (he's a fan of Miles Davis), the poems are playful in their use of language and musical in structure. Nevertheless, they have a dark, mythical feel to them. You can read my review of the book here at Stride Magazine.