I finally worked up the courage to offer the book thief A job in my bookshop as my sometime assistant To my surprise I found that she came from a wealthy family And only stole books as she believed That she should not have to pay for them Ours is a transparent friendship Sometimes warm […]

Of late a woman casually dressed with raven hair Has stolen books from my run down shop The books are only worth of few euros each Her behaviour fascinates me as do her choices She tends to steal books on classical philosophy By secreting them under her sloppy joe I am thinking of offering her […]

Only God knows that I exist Quite why he cares I do not know Nobody else is aware of me Which has its advantages As I own an old bookshop Without regular customers In a dingy street near the railway station

For a number of years I corresponded with a priest from Senegal It was a gentle friendship which we both enjoyed without thought And then he died of a fever in the days before his fiftieth birthday This devastated me and even now ten years later I long to hear his voice But of late […]

When I was very young I remember being told a story about a girl who had been blind since birth Who had her diseased eyes replaced During a pioneering operation Her donor was a serial killer who had been tried and fried for his crimes All was well for a while But soon she began […]

I am planning to celebrate my next birthday Which is a landmark birthday By sitting on a wall in Versailles Enjoying on ice cream Whether this will materialise or not is open to question As the future is always fluid Nothing is still Only the past remains unchanged One can interpret the past But the […]

the most accurate to gauge a nations progress is to study its railway network  railways were one of gods greatest gifts to man  if a country is proud of its railways  then it is going forward  if it neglects them  then the opposite is true  in my country the railways have declined alarmingly  with miles […]

The clouds hung heavily over the hills as I walked across the drenched fields towards you I could see you standing under the pink blossom trees with your collar upturned against the feral winds We were making our way towards the white city But the weather had detained us You told me that you were […]

In 1971 some scenes of a movie about Mary Queen of Scots were shot under the cliffs not far from my home During the filming an amber ring was lost when it was cast into a rock pool and swallowed up by the tide I recently found this ring and gave it to my lovely […]

We were spending the last night in our cottage As it was due to be repossessed I looked out of the window from our love bed And could see the clumsy movements Of the malignant bailiffs As they tried to hide amongst the tired autumn trees I looked at your fragile naked breasts Deep in […]