By the time she and I had finished the Loam Wines’ 1964 bottle of Casa Del Toro, the 1985 Cabernet Sauvignon had already been opened. I don’t recall now who opened it, because this would now be our third bottle. After discussing our financial and sexual lives we both decided on one thing: men should be made to suffer.

If You Go Rooting (or Fare Thee Well, Ned) by Clayton Lister

NOT unreasonably, I believe, I’d thought that if I had an ally at Wallops Roost it was my mother. But having so violently expressed her feelings about my friendship with Julie Allinson, it now seemed she wanted as little to do with her first-born as maternally possible. Guilt played some part — I’ll credit her with that much conscience — though knowing Mother, self-pity the greater.
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There’s no price

            I’ve broken
        through every glass door, punched

                        on change,

            e-
            very

                        precedent

            hollow moment,

                        for the unexpected –

            squeezed                         each

if it was, it would be:

            forgotten fruit,

onethousandfortyfourhundredths
                      is got me wannawork is
          wannalearn
                      is gonenanners praying to UNKLE SAM for
tenmore bucks, or a pack of smokes

  (some THING to do tonite where
 else is here)

Not unreasonably, I believe, I’d thought that if I had an ally at Wallops Roost it was my mother. But having so violently expressed her feelings about my friendship with Julie Allinson, it now seemed she wanted as little to do with her first-born as maternally possible. Guilt played some part — I’ll credit her with that much conscience — though knowing Mother, self-pity the greater.

Grünerløkka by Adam Moorad

I think it was the codeine; this was after my money wire arrived. I had checked into a backpacker motel indefinitely: a room with four walls, each painted a different color, each peeled; the ceiling too. It was Oslo, the dead of winter; every hour felt late. Awaking fully clothed and bleeding from my nose in the bathtub, my hands had pruned and were shaking. I felt jetlagged, I remembered naught.
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One day there was a lion with no eyes but extremely keen hearing. Awards were to be won, oh yes and lion won them all. Progressively, speeches were given which were received with much applause and contempt, simultaneously. Snakes and horses of every colour in the rainbow grinned and neighed and frequented the neighbourhood pubs after these glorious occasions. Impressed ducklings (ugly or not) cavorted and paraded their feathers but lion did not want these prizes; he was no king of the jungle to be swayed in such slippery fashions.

I was quite at liberty to venture beyond the boundary of Wallops Roost as long as in daylight hours. So our Granny Wallop had informed me. I was elated. Back home in Leeds, before this summer holiday, lately re-branded relocation, ‘Ee, stop thi mitherin’. Go aht t’laik, can’t thee?’ was a favourite refrain of my mother’s. It seemed my company was not appreciated anywhere by anyone.

            I do wish it had been
                        a different
                        time,
            she said

if
in the endless black and white
there IS ANOTHER set of sentients
color me clear
as a mirage du mer
as the boy what forced his Irish accent
well into the tenth grade

I think it was the codeine; this was after my money wire arrived. I had checked into a backpacker motel indefinitely: a room with four walls, each painted a different color, each peeled; the ceiling too. It was Oslo, the dead of winter; every hour felt late. Awaking fully clothed and bleeding from my nose in the bathtub, my hands had pruned and were shaking. I felt jetlagged, I remembered naught.

As Well a Panther As a Besom
by Clayton Lister

Our Granny Wallop was right. I couldn’t have disputed the point. More partial to milk and cheese than either home-butchered game or home-slaughtered fowl I was. Just the same, Gertrude the goat’s swollen udders were a sight, let alone warm sensation between the fingers, altogether too reminiscent of our mother’s lactations for my liking.
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what tore us from him 
forbetter or forworse,
hung andrew lupin from the cleansing rope.
hoped dick and perry saw him hurt his only kin real sore.
 was these castanets what score the death scene.
they've since went away
 to this trip of a town.

Our Granny Wallop was right. I couldn’t have disputed the point. More partial to milk and cheese than either home-butchered game or home-slaughtered fowl I was. Just the same, Gertrude the goat’s swollen udders were a sight, let alone warm sensation between the fingers, altogether too reminiscent of our mother’s lactations for my liking.