Stuart Miller-Osborne

Blue, Blue, Yellow Squares Blue Toriaga always added these words to the title page of any of his collections of poems It was almost like an autograph Indeed he always signed his books as Blue, Blue, Yellow Squares Blue instead of his birth name He recommended to friends that they travel without clothes (as he did) […]

Alfredo Garcia was named after a movie that no one in his family had ever seen The family name was Garcia so Alfredo’s uncle suggested the name when Alfredo was born in 1987 Alfredo’s uncle had seen the movie with his cousin in a small cinema in Madrid in 1974 He admired Sam Peckinpah movies […]

eye had been sitting on the train for about ten minutes reading a book about the irish rebellion of seventeen ninety eight my book had been lavishly illustrated by george cruishank eye was studying in graphic detail an illustration of the murder of george crauford and his granddaughter when eye noticed the woman opposite me […]

Ani4ani4ani4ani4ani A mechanical digger is clearing up the remaining copies of USA I am standing on the corner of the street Watching the operation On the opposite corner is John Dos Passos He is sharing an ice cream With a girl in a green dress Today a man was executed in the USA The largest […]

In the Field of the Vapours The grasses grow to different heights The grass nearest to the railway line Is short and summer sparse Whereas the grass nearest The Road of Sensible Praise Is much taller and more lush   From where I normally sit The differing length Of these grasses Distort my view of […]

Guns are booming over the town once more And men and women from the seventeenth century Patrol the streets and mingle with the Saturday shoppers War is never far away   The chatter of the muskets does not disturb Mrs P As she cleans the brasses in the school chapel Watched by generations of long […]

Inside the Victorian clock tower written in pencil on a beam can be found the following graffiti Nancy, Bob, Roger and me slept here in the July of 63 I found these words During my search for Elvis Who had been reported As being seen in the town Some years ago    

The day was fading above the Reculver Towers into a milky panorama as it often did in mid-July Children were searching for unchartered seahorses in the orange rock pools exposed by the tide As their parents sat in front of the beach café and took tea from bone brittle china cups Tall girls in black […]

Two Woodpeckers and a Magpie In a tree near the River Stour two Woodpeckers and a Magpie argued over its remaining fruits a boatman drifted by but did not notice the disturbance as he was reading the Bible   Kent Mirror the languid flowers always lay peacefully in their beds as I passed them on […]

Index of a Few Words Nobody holidays in Margate anymore apart from lonely artists seeking the modern children no longer touch the clouds with their sandy spades and perch with amazing balance on the splendid steps near the Victorian clock   These steps are washed twice a day by the reluctant tides but are only […]