I might not have it all, and what I’ve got may not last for all the days of my life. But I have it right now. I have the words. So, I’m lonely (a circumstantial and temporary loneliness), and I can feel Time sanding me down and sucking me dry. But I’m not alone: I […]

On 3/27/13, on a hot, still Citybowl day, Marcus Low wrote: Here the wind has left us Gone on holiday … or hunger strike No one really cares We’re hardened by abandonment These old streets are empty as death Don’t you finger that flag, don’t you dare tempt us by fluttering those leaves We done […]

22/10/2013 Been so long since I’ve written poems. Went through a muse-fuelled stage between 2005 and 2007 when I couldn’t help but write poems. Not sure how to access that room in my brain right now – not even sure that I’m meant to. I know what this room called “Poetry” is for And what’s […]

These are my morning pages: three pages every day, no thinking, no planning. This exercise kind of saved my life when it seemed like all the words had dried up. I’m posting a series of these muses and subconscious outpourings – they come in no particular order. 23/10/2013 It’s the next 3 pages – just […]

It’s one of those Cape days that’s a gift – a ridiculous blessing – a sneak-peak into Paradise. As long as you have shade. And if you do, there’s no blue to match the polished sky, no sun more golden shining through oak leaves that filter away the UV, only leaving the nourishing warmth on […]

Standing  waiting for the morning train, and I can feel season’s change – the light is already softer, gentler; a tender autumn sun that doesn’t singe and burn. The train pulls in and this is special morning as, for once, it’s almost empty. In a set of four seats there is place enough for ten people, […]

So, I have a potential muse – just close to home and professionally inappropriate – which is OK, it’s only a muse – a pleasant idea, a creative spark, if you like. This maybe-muse has no idea that it makes me think of places I’ve never even been – that I see crumbly, sun-warmed Provencal […]

Sitting on the edge of Muizenberg beach today, just looking across the bay, I see a young Border Collie running after his boy on the sand, then hurdle-jumping as he meets the surf. How that dog loves his people, but, oh, how he hates the water. Your human habitation lies quietly beneath the shadow of […]

There’s a man sitting opposite me on the train this morning: he reminds me of the spy-thriller author John Le Carre, but a younger version.  He is reading, but I can see he’s easily distracted by noise – which is OK, as there aren’t many of us on this train. A few stops further down […]

The dusty, gritty smell of cold night air – tinged with petrol, clutch-plate burgers and bad coffee – that’s the good-memory smell of so many road trips up and down the N1. Weirdly, it’s suddenly triggered by light on the faces of some actors in a TV night-scene, just like those tall, tall lights you […]