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Write a funeral poem This was the instruction ringing in my ears as I watched the sea take on shades of subtle green. A sea seen against an overgrown thistle with purple-spiked heads. I turned to see who had triggered the initial instruction, but in the dying light, all I could make out...

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NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING Because Nothing was ever what was there before And what was there before ever ends up as Nothing We shall trouble you no more Truths can only be said once Otherwise they are taken for granted And Truths that come from Nothing have haunted The rest of...

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It was as if something actually did … for once. A small hand grasping for nothing, but nevertheless it was a real hand doing it. The moment felt sacred, even though it was just as easy to use the word ‘scared’. Was the sole witness scared or were the gestures of the hand having come...

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On the shop counter were rods of several sizes. Tubes with the middles filled in. Some covered in paper like Trebor Mints. Some with a metal finish. Others that had a look of wood about them. Ranging from half inch diameter to three inches. They were kept from rolling about by two prismatic...

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TWO VIGNETTES ****************** RED HATS Why they call people with ginger hair redheads I have no idea. I suppose the expression ‘redhead’ predates the invention of the word ‘orange’ to describe the orange colour. So, is ‘red’ older? And did it previously cover other colours...

by D.F. Lewis

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A voice in the wilderness - the writer studied this expression with which the writer was faced. If a voice was in the wilderness, did that not imply that there was nobody else about, and if so, how could such a voice be heard for anyone to address such a topic, without destroying the...

D.F. Lewis

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You somehow expect yourself to be already sitting there as part of the ritual of your own ablutions, a double of yourself starting the process before the real you arrives to attend to such a natural urge. This seems to be an out-of-body experience especially when you believe you are dreaming...

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YOURS I have long been my own version of the Sandman combing the byways of beaches — and whatever I found I have found it in the form of what I called Find Art, because, although now found, I still needed to find the actual art latent within it by cropping to size both the image and my...

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THE OLD LID Today, with the lamplighter having been called out early as a duty to counter fog, it didn’t seem to matter how old the two self-portraits I found in an attic happened to be, as they were obviously older than anyone alive today, but just which of the two men (or who appeared...

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I claim it is part of everything to be its own whole. The person implied by ‘me’ is more universal than anything you can put between definition-buffers. Johnno looked up at the chimney and sighed deeply, and wondered if his brushes would reach up that far, as the flue looked as if it might be...

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“That’s what I’m looking for — slugs and trees.” I looked at him askance, this being Christmas Day. He called himself Mr Non Sequitur, as if that explained everything except a genuine eeriness in the number 249. “Stout appears in my story…” he continues meaningfully as if I would understand....

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A piece for Christmas Eve Christmas even and crisp, the light of evenings barely beginning to draw out again, curtains pulled together before they should. I left the sitting-room so that a proper guest could occupy it, each room that I occupied being in my rôle of pre-sitter, along...

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Christmas is when people recognise something seasonal is happening, all good cheer and other nonsense, but Gloria found nothing in it, except the soft candlelight competing with the carollers singing about angels upon the snowy slopes outside, and the stairs upstairs inviting her to walk,...

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They said, about the property in question, that you needed to fine-tune the senses of sound and sight to experience the shape’s presence in the property’s unlit sitting-room, let alone the senses of touch, smell and, eventually, taste. But the prime venue definitely being the sitting-room...

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PAPA PETER’S POKERS The words were on a sign decking the shopfront in the darkest area of town near the factory area and the dry dock. It was the only shop that I could see in a derelict covered-market, but it showed all the signs of being open for business. I wondered whether it was a...

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Was it a dream? Yes, but I don’t want to get into the habit of miniaturising my dreams into words for you each morning after waking. Such a regular rite has the high suspicion of a chore or a self-indulgence. However, from last night I can’t seem to rid myself of the things that bowled along...

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THE CHRISTMAS ROOM A room dedicated to an annual Christmas season – a room not used for the rest of the year – was queer in itself. But your mansion had so many rooms it seemed a shame for someone like you – a truly Christmassy person – not to have a home with a purpose-‘built’ Christmas...

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…and he asked you to stand … just there. So as to demonstrate what must have been meant. He claimed that was just where … well, just where a ghost had stood earlier just as he had been looking through his bedroom window straight into the blinding sun of freak weather conditions, a time of...

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A bijou house to facilitate the residing of human beings within an abode scaled-down from a sprawling stately mansion in appearance. The gardens, secret as well as open, were equally scaled down to become flower beds and plots of easy maintenance, including a tiny rockery made from beach...

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The lady intoned familiar nursery-rhymes with a plaintive smile. The child lifted its poppy face mock half-heartedly to the heaven of this mother’s face and stammered out: “Mummy I love you so much I love you even more than all the money in the world … plus sixpence.” There was much giggling...