Author Archives: colinhopkirk

Taking up the cable that hauls the Summer Rose above the tideline Mrs E backs her ancient tractor (a clanking yellow growler) out towards the sea

In the far distance hazy where the Trent is (although you cannot see it) great land-ships lay in tight formation anchored down the valley At night it’s all lights

I remember the burning of the bowstring the bloody welt along the inside of my forearm the arrow not really flying a wobbling sort of flight falling short of the target as Richard Greene an outlaw in tights stood beneath a spreading oak hands on belted hips and threw his head back laughing

What remains of the Seagull sits beached on a low rise behind the donkey enclosure at the arse end of the garden centre

A blue sky with patchy clouds Baroque clouds with curlicues and flattish undersides marching out to sea * See, down below a striped man walks the marsh He could be Magwitch a desperate escapee clapped in invisible irons

The day it all went wrong became to much enough to flee the house he decamped to the jungle backpack stuffed with papers dirty grey bandana and a new American accent At dusk, dirt-faced and cagey he patrols the bandstand scouts ornamental ponds checks the great stone lion for booby traps pits with sharpened stakesContinue reading “The jungle”

(for Bill H) He leans in to the speaker The feedback runs right through him each cell bathed in sound He doesn’t know it yet how waves at certain amplitudes at certain volumes over time

They must have been the rage once the apogee of cool at the dawning of the Space Age or maybe shortly after – rotating dials and numbers like something from a jukebox or borrowed from a pinball a spinner in a bubble to show the fuel is running

Listening to the droneof an underpowered motorcyclestruggling to make the Bypass hillsfading into the distanceimagining where it iswhere it’s got to nowand again, nowdreaming where it’s goinglistening hard ( not quite – not yet )

The blokes at the city dump know their stuff Each is assigned to a numbered station the more experienced keeping two in play Men in orange hi-vis dot the site It’s a noisy place, so there is much shouting and pointing and waving of arms At ‘Electricals’ I am politely instructed not to mix aContinue reading “City Dump”