by Dave McGowan
The cosmos
Seen from outside
Unimaginable heat
Unthinkably cold
Everything within expanding
Zoom in
(Continued)
by Rebecca Feiner
The back street building is all decayed grandeur. A place the sun no longer reaches.
Number 9 was once a grand private house. Later it became an inn, kept by Charlie Swinson. Samuel Johnson would drink there, with his mate Joshua Reynolds. In 1764 they elevated their late night sessions into something more distinguished by referring to Number 9 as “The Club”.
(Continued)
by Oliver X
Her leg resonates to the clang of pain
And the thrill electrifies her cunt.
With another testosterised swing
The steel of a boot compresses the meniscus of shinflesh
To a foil of active nerve.
(Continued)
by Andrew Shoben
I grew up in South London, and like many teenagers, I got a job in the local Tesco supermarket. For the first few months there, I was a Trolley Boy, collecting the metal trollies that piled up in the car park, where shoppers left them after unloading. Occasionally, I’d get lucky, and find a pound coin or two wedged in the little metal box that unlocked them from the Trolley Park. This was a moment of excitement in an otherwise dull, dull job.
(Continued)
by Isobel Poltroon
I go out on Valentine’s Day to buy my cleaning lady a plastic bucket with a filter on top to squeeze out the mop. She’s worn out the old one, we’ve been together so long. The shop windows are a sickly mess of pink and red, somewhere between an abattoir and a little girl’s bedroom. The shops are full of men whose women set their price at a bunch of red flowers and a meal deal.
(Continued)
by Simeon Carr – Minns
Around the end of August 2001, we were deployed on an Operation called ‘Op Bessemer’to Macedonia as part of a NATO force to intervene in a civil war between Albanian insurgents and the Macedonian government and then to oversee an arms amnesty as part of something drawn up called the ‘Ohrid Agreement’.
Under the terms of the Ohrid Agreement, the Macedonian government agreed to devolve greater political power and cultural recognition to the Albanian minority. The Albanian side agreed to abandon separatist demands and to fully recognise all Macedonian institutions.
Yep, it was fucking boring. Positive but boring.
(Continued)
by Leila Segal
The rain forest. Whistles and hums, rustles and calls. I saw something red on the path, crushed, like a big purple eye, and I learned it was the shell of a dead crab. Later, when I saw the crabs alive, they had big pincers and rustled sideways, everywhere in the lush green undergrowth as we walked.
I had on a long-sleeved light blue shirt to stop the mosquitoes. They were many, and I slapped Charo’s back over and over again. The black pinpoints did not move once they had landed. Maybe they were getting ready to suck the blood – snapping their pincers, chomping their jaws, limbering up before the bite.
(Continued)
by Robert Hacker Jessett
Chapter XV
The day finally arrived and Bob met Veronica at Clapham Junction.
Veronica was in dressed-down Jesus mode, the frills had gone and the duffle coat had made a comeback, but she was still wearing the hairclip with the 3 little love hearts.
They walked slowly back to the flat.
Bob had kicked Zak off the sofa and told him to make himself scarce for 24 hours, which he’d reluctantly agreed to do.
It being a Saturday, Greg would be DIY-ing at Nina’s, so Bob and Veronica would have the place to themselves.
‘Perfect groundwork,’ thought Bob, ‘that’s if Zak didn’t manage to fuck things up somehow.’
(Continued)
By Dave McGowan
Even though, in reality, you were little more than a fleeting vision
That swept by now and then
Every year or two, Forest Hill, SE23
All I wanted to be was you
With yer sleeveless v-neck
And yer Vespa scooter
Yer can of Long Life
And yer 3-buttoned down Ben Sherman
And yer brogues and yer turn-ups
I would run down the middle of the road after you
When you departed for Dagenham
(Continued)
A cautionary tale for those thinking of leaving London by Dave McGowan
A few years ago, I experimented with living part of the week outside of London and rented a flat in Hastings so my girlfriend and I could spend long weekends by the sea. I’ve got a few mates down there but not enough to provide a rich and varied social life. I found myself bowling about a bit. Sticking my nose into dusty corners, that sort of thing.
(Continued)
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