anthology

"spools of suffering set out in ordered rows"

"A hundred agonies in black and white"

"the reader's eyeballs prick with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers"

"a shaved head full of powerful incantations"

"little fishing boats strung out like bunting on a green-blue translucent sea"

"he must have wondered, which had been the better way to die"

"carving out me own identity"

"dem tell me what dem want to tell me"

"a yellow sunrise to the dying"

"pages smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention"

"maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines"

"this is what could alter things"

"wrinkled lip, sneer of cold command"

"King of Kings, look on my works, ye mighty, and despair"

"Nothing beside remains"

"I gave commands, and all smiles stopped"

"she had a heart – how shall I say – too soon made glad"

"as if she ranked my gift of a nine-hundred year old name with anybody's gift"

"I am branded by an impression of sunlight"

"They accuse me of being dark in their free city"

"My memory of it is sunlight clear"

"the mind-forged manacles I hear"

"marks of weakness, marks of woe"

"runs in blood down palace walls"

"went heaving through the water like a swan"

"a huge peak, black and huge... upreared its head"

"with trembling oars I turned"

"exploding comfortably"

"spits like a tame cat turned savage"

"it is a huge nothing that we fear"

"merciless iced-east-wind that knives us"

"twitching agonies of men among its brambles"

"nothing happens"

"king, honour, human dignity etcetera, dropped like luxuries in yelling alarm"

"lugged a rifle, numb as a smashed arm"

"Suddenly, he awoke, and was running"

"honour the Light Brigade... noble six-hundred"

"into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell"

"theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die"

"I resisted the urge to run my fingers through the gelled blackthorns of your hair"

"the world overflowing like a treasure chest"

"reinforcements of scarf, gloves"

"probably armed, possibly not"

"pain itself, the image of agony"

"his bloody life in my bloody hands"