From a deep brain-embedded place /
the recurring doodle kept slouching out, /
caught on paper when she rode the small-town bus /
to school, the tantalizing H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D / ...
novel excerpt (Cillian Press, October 2013)
Marion owns an artists’ agency in London and in the first passage Jean-Claude, a French painter Marion represents, is in New York on the eve of a solo show:
‘Jean-Claude leaned on the railings…
What’s a nice Jewish girl from Long Island doing with an obsession for all things Scottish? I’m not sure I can explain. I can only tell you that it all started that day in the mid-1980s when I heard The …
So much time wasted wanting to be remembered /
Ends with desire to be forgotten, /
As one chirrup absent from the dawn chorus, /
An unclaimed seat in the theatre, /
A volume missing from the library shelf. /
Somehow it all gets done and over with — /
The office emptied of its archival dross, /
Papers re-read, or binned, the years of breath /
Re-breathed, moment by moment. Why feel cross /
novel excerpt (Careswell Press, 2012) It is 563 A.D. The world has been plunged into chaos by the collapse of the Roman Empire and barbarian invasions: civilization holds on by a thread. Columba, a powerful abbot-prince from Ireland, is exiled …
I liked meeting you, she says. I really liked meeting you. /
From where I’m sitting, I picture her on her balcony /
overlooking her city of grids and grey verticals. /
The selich (old Scots), or Selkie, is a mythical creature, a revenant, reborn from the soul of the drowned as a seal, which takes human form at night and comes to shore.
Stiff linen under a glass dome in Paris: /
Bofinger, in the 4th near Place des Vosges /
- hushed place where they bring in the white Limoges, /
wine vinegar with shallots, and embarrass /