tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55523597166883580192011-10-22T21:29:38.969+01:00Spitting Sibilants At The Bourgeoisiesmfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.comBlogger221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-10683975786402952112011-08-12T19:29:00.000+01:002011-08-12T19:29:35.831+01:00

...can be read at the wonderful Metazen.

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-26479545437991164452011-05-21T15:38:00.000+01:002011-05-21T15:38:45.530+01:00

I endured teeth-cracking cold for you on the night we planned to meet. I gave up precious body heat to the glaciating air, my extremities surviving on the memory of blood flow. I stood sentry-stiff by a sighing junction until the town closed down; imagined other intersections hosting lonely vigils too. When I thought I saw you driving by, eyes on the road ahead, I felt infatuation die. Its

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-36731672198596640442011-05-06T20:09:00.000+01:002011-05-06T20:09:59.253+01:00

I ripped up my portfolio in a fit of self-disgust, I did it, I had to, its pages made me sick. It was a reckless desperate deed, there were blood stains on the spine, and though I fainted when the stitching split, at last I was unbound. My skin was left in ribbons with paper cuts from the past; I found staples slowly rusting in my heart and in my lungs. When I discovered the dust of that life

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-55500257201261667092011-05-01T09:55:00.000+01:002011-05-01T09:55:40.341+01:00

I am momentarily blinded by my own steam as it rises from the hard-earned contours of my body. I squint through this mist of exertion at the silhouettes gathered against the window opposite. They want poetry, transcendence, some epiphany to ignite their writing - anything but the blood in the bucket, or the casually-ruptured spleen. I give them some brutality to bite down upon: I dip and swivel,

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-77826667415502903802011-02-02T14:17:00.000Z2011-02-02T14:17:29.709Z

I sat with the young man in the back of the ambulance, gently holding his hand. A monitor on a shelf translated bodily travails into cold, inscrutable data. He managed to maintain eye contact with me, and occasionally offered a resigned smile. I tried to look nonchalant, feigning interest in the everyday details of his life, while in my peripheral vision a vivid green line spiked and dipped

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-78413090278748475212011-02-01T16:13:00.003Z2011-02-01T16:14:10.665Z

He shovelled shit as a short-order cook. Sweat rashes and fat-splattered lashes. One day his pan boiled over. Pushed the manager’s face flat onto the griddle. “The eggs are off”, the waitress told customers. The eggs are off.

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-33844491450956583832010-12-08T14:55:00.002Z2010-12-08T14:55:45.191Z

He earned a B in Ballistics and blew up the school, report cards descending through the smoke like scorched ticker tape as he strolled from the campus in thrall to his newfound vocation. In a small town without Semtex he became addicted to tinder, and was soon the neighbourhood’s pre-eminent arsonist: he could raze a damp ramshackle and nonchalantly detonate a dud, though firework factories

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-65955644397509104552010-12-01T11:31:00.002Z2010-12-01T11:31:55.513Z

I hitched a ride to Hitch’s house: there was a wake there. The dead man’s family, scattered across the land like an arc of grain tossed from a farmer’s fist, had been inexorably drawn to this cottage by the sea like pilgrims convening in kinship. Standing around the coffin with the other guests, I contemplated how an entire life could be narrowed down to such a slender point of focus: all of one’

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-69153642766042061342010-11-19T19:10:00.000Z2010-11-19T19:10:58.547Z

Five days undiscovered in the Damage Motel and despite hourly showers I still feel unclean. Undrawn drapes imprison me, and I dread the unpredictable clicks of the air conditioning that recall all too keenly the recent cocking of a Magnum hammer. I lie hypnotised by the hissing whispers of chambermaids conspiring beyond the keyhole, limply fingering the Do Not Disturb sign, whilst out on the

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-53789094183262880222010-11-13T09:17:00.000Z2010-11-13T09:17:24.032Z

All I can see is Jane Christie’s face in front of me mouthing silent threats. I see it every time I close my eyes and it prevents me from sleeping. The worst thing is, I don’t know why she is so angry with me. I think I’m a good man. I’ve made mistakes - who hasn’t - but do I deserve such hatred? Only Jane Christie, lying peacefully beside me, knows the answer.

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-50207451550122173722010-11-03T10:36:00.000Z2010-11-03T14:39:55.152Z

Like the beekeeper stung to death by his own swarm she now understands betrayal. The note taped to her fridge says “It’s all been a lie.” She no longer feels hungry; in fact, she can’t imagine ever eating again. The chambers of her heart are shrinking, her stomach is a baby’s fist. The calendar falls to the floor and her future with it. The food in the fridge continues to decay.

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-46683095927786904132010-10-26T12:56:00.000+01:002010-11-03T14:39:55.152Z

Police released a photograph of some bedding that had been wrapped around an abandoned baby that had subsequently died. The caption read: Have you seen this blanket before? Department stores claimed positive sightings while knitting circles crocheted replicas. For the TV reconstruction, an actress playing the mother placed a doll (playing the baby) at the scene. The day after its broadcast, a

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-47081381855104901332010-10-22T08:43:00.002+01:002010-12-01T11:36:32.944Z

Your white face under the pier destroyed me. I was on my knees trying to unpick the seaweed that shackled your hands as fireworks punctured the sky and latticed the moon. I would have stopped them if I could, but I was as powerless to stop the light leaking through from the funfair overhead, callously dappling you with candy colours, like funereal confetti: light that lit your neck, exposed the

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-54513630145246339352010-09-20T16:27:00.001+01:002010-11-03T14:39:55.153Z

...can be viewed at the charming Six Sentences.

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-64799704296349348772010-09-09T07:49:00.000+01:002010-11-03T14:39:55.154Z

We are renovating the house when she asks me if I can hear what she’s saying. I lay down my tools and explain the theory of acoustics to her. She wonders if I appreciate the importance of strong foundations. I go on about concrete footings and load-bearing, my replies evaporating in the large, dusty space between us. There is so much building work to be done, and so much dead air to fill, but we

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-91273641968801888582010-08-16T09:05:00.001+01:002010-11-03T14:39:55.155Z

The frame of this bed is one hundred and fifty years old and we are destroying it. Unspeaking, with our bare feet bedded in the frost, we cleave the icy air with our axes. We bring them down with dour intent as the exertion veils our heads in gauzy blooms of breath. Out of sync we hack at richly-carved posts, panels, beams and struts, toiling in denial of all the births, deaths, couplings and

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-15627866185231059132010-08-14T09:40:00.002+01:002010-11-03T14:39:55.155Z

To the munitions factory I delivered ten warm baguettes, some brie wrapped in waxed paper, and a large tub of olives. The workshop droned and banged; it smelt of oil and sweat and metal, and seemed to pulsate with the kind of camaraderie, borne of common sufferance, that as a callow young delivery boy I craved. The workers may not have ruffled my hair so affectionately with their manly, calloused

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-22088109738328547912010-07-01T17:40:00.002+01:002010-11-03T14:39:55.156Z

...has been kindly accepted by the excellent Six Sentences.

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-26964474215456727702010-06-28T12:41:00.002+01:002010-11-03T14:39:55.156Z

I stand beside the bed and consider the pillow where your head has been lying: it still retains an impression, like a thumb-print in softened wax. I am looking at the space that you occupied, as though it holds a significance. As though by displacing the air there, by touching the sheets, you have somehow imbued it with yourself. I look at it like it could save me. Because they couldn’t save you,

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-2413256240463537112010-06-05T15:43:00.004+01:002010-11-03T14:39:55.157Z

Her body heat has saved her. They are folding her through impossible concrete fissures, before lowering her onto a khaki canvas stretcher where they smooth her out like a buckled paper kite. For nine days and nights, collapsed into a random void, she has cherished each grain of rice as a ration and a rosary, whilst listening to water ease from a fractured main, just out of reach. She has

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-19647614131722351302010-03-22T16:59:00.001Z2010-07-01T12:41:19.522+01:00

Musician David Byrne has been talking about his creative methods, and they will be familiar to many writers. He endorses the benefits of purposely limiting one’s creative approach by adopting certain parameters. This is a technique suggested in many creative writing books and classes: set titles, ‘prompts’, time or word limits etc. They can be randomly-chosen, and are all contrived to ignite

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5552359716688358019.post-72490015335158191092010-03-09T15:18:00.005Z2010-07-01T12:39:46.906+01:00

Due respect to Will Self who, on BBC’s Question Time last Thursday (4th March), provided a little respite from the weary, lumpen consensus of his fellow (party political) guests by virtue of some pointed dissent, delivered throughout with his usual waspish intensity. He also managed to leaven the cheerless, stodgy content (including departmental cuts, and the ‘personalities’ of party leaders),

smfifteenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11468550163136140715noreply@blogger.com0