The Source

"‘Look, you have drunk £3.15. You fool, that’s £3.15 you’ve eaten.’ Clink, the cup on the saucer, the coins sliding down my throat."

"Empty time lent shape by the weekly rites Of chiselling the stubble away"

"Find us together: tiptoeing across the fanning pages of a calendar."

"Under the bent thumb streetlight, umbrella domes burst forth, splashing rich nightfall onto their neighbours."

'Scream me into the void. I would like to be screamed into the void. Please.'

"the table is rotting, and the house is rotting, and we are rotting too."

'bricolage applause as spoken word verses raining down like stardust'

'snippets of shared secrets, tied to a half forgotten memory'

"I won't have to close my eyes to remember your smile."

"The people have solidified since the summer. Seized up in the cold. No longer fluid Melting and melding together in the sun They can be discerned as individuals now. Separate entities two metres apart."

"Even as you float on panicked waves find the caress of a thousand petals softening you still."

"The sun hangs low in the sky like a ripe apple as my bicycle zig-zags over the thick paint-stripe shadows cast by the trees."

"A delicate chain bobs around his neck (his neck being the whole length of his body, which is just one long neck really); he bought it after watching Normal Worms. Maybe if he looked like worm-Connell, he imagines, things would have been different. Maybe worm-Sharon wouldn’t have left him for worm-Darren."

"The pattern starts from you to there And, breathless, starts again with me."

"Rain cracks its whip Against the windows. The wielder: autumn. From the cottage in the cleft of the foothills You can see a flickering light, just out of sight And it stains the blackest night."

"A worm has beaten me to the hole I’m digging; when I pull apart the soil, I find a slender punctuation mark in the mud. Its pink body threads through the dark clay."

"It was uncommonly sultry and dark when I arrived at the Winchester water meadows. The scene was a near stereotype, and it reminded me of those decrepit - far too embellished - landscapes you see in many royal palaces."

"in a quiet hollow on the far side of this field rain patters through the leaves like twinkling glass"

"Now, God’s people are soon to flee, Into the wilderness and coarser sands He takes them, they at last are free, But I, loyal servant, loving wife, What is God’s plan for me?"

"What you are, is complicated. And I love you for that, Because you are complicated, Because you are raw, and soft, and broken."