Cotquean I’m sewing up tears in my boxing gear: a needle, black thread and bachelor stitches. I’m cross-legged on the bathroom floor while Pharaoh splashes in the tub beside me, a pink and laughing treasure two years long. I ran his bath, undressed his happy body. Now I wash his hair, speak quietly through the […]
Inspirations & results Quick Links: Round 1 – inspiration Round 1 – results Round 2 – inspiration Round 2 – results Round 3 – inspiration Round 3 – results Welcome to Inspirathlon 2024! This is the main page for our competition. Everything you’ll need to take part is here: competition information, Inspirations and round results. We’ll
Procrastination notes I To Avoid Procrastination, Never Have a Romantic Relationship My girlfriend Flo just left our first-floor apartment at 15 Móinéar Street to clock in at her job as the manager of a boutique fashion retailer in downtown Boston. She does not have a license, so she hailed a car through a rideshare app.
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Ice Cream I turn and see Blake struggle up the pot-holed street. Directly above him, an old woman smokes on a balcony, her bare arms resting on its metal railing. Blake looks like a tourist. An American tourist. Which he is. Basketball vest, baggy shorts, battered trainers. A back-to-front baseball cap. Two years in London
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I don’t want to die but if i do I hope not to burn in Hell forever but burn in Heaven, be on fire for Jesus as our Sunday School teacher says it, burning the very best way she sings out so Sunday after church I returned to our classroom, empty then but for God
poetry: I don’t want to die but if I do Read More »
Oedipus Rex Walks Into A Bar I found him at the bar. ‘May I join you, Your Highness?’ ‘Glad to have the company.’ He motioned vaguely to the stool beside him. ‘I’m not the king anymore, so you can skip the formalities. Call me Ed.’ ‘I’m Homer.’ He extended his hand in my general direction.
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Sign up for next season’s newsletter content updates & competition news – direct to your inbox Autumn 2024 Reading time: about 5 minutes The carrier pigeons we sent out to deliver our June, July and August newsletters appear to have got lost somewhere. (We think they were just winging it, anyway.) So we’ve had a
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Bookmarks It might be a receipt, a bus ticket, or if you need that ticket to return on, the foil paper ripped from a half-packet of gum, an old hairclip, something humdrum, a pen, or even, in desperation, a tissue, slightly used (do not judge them) or whatever else can be foraged from the handbag’s
Before the show You will walk slowly into the rehearsal room of the theatre, you will turn on the lights hanging from the ceiling, you will contemplate yourself full-length in the large wall mirror, you will see a beautiful woman in her thirties, with features as firm as her character, luminous eyes, with her hair
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The Standards Line Beneath ice-tipped oaks, half-angry, amused, wandering beside a party of the beautiful — women in evening sheath and wrap coats, Chloe satchels, furs; men at their MacAllan and Maduros. I come upon her, reading Ferrante on a daybed, Manhattan in a chilled tumbler on the floor. Barefoot, lost in lyrics of Bewitched,
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