Poetry & prose by Alex Hickman
On the night of September 26/27 my friend John Clark and I walked 30 miles to raise money for two refugee charities. More information on the walk, including a radio interview I did with BBC Wiltshire radio, can be found here: https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/212hR4/ab/b59ZP4 These are my notes of the experience: John and I leave by the garden […]
Read More…Do you remember that glorious morning before the war when I swam you out into the sea, against your mother’s warning of urchins scouting the rock water for rays? You holding too tight around my neck, laughing, encouraging me over the blue space beneath our feet. You were not punctured by urchins that day. Or, […]
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Lonely on deck, the day in embers on Oslofjord I am riding the city ferry home. An islander from south of here, my temperate curiosity is catching cold in the autumn wind. And there is little drama on deck, just the lighthouse playing on wet rock, on the silos for international wheat, light play on […]
Read More…After communion, the little congregation scattered to roasting tins and claret we climb the church tower, one father and his two sons, stone steps screwing us heavenwards, the tower stinking of winter, its four bells hanging in a bat chamber like green bombs, their detonators fouled with bad years. Upwards! The screw tightens us up […]
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I Across the narrow afternoon she helps me picking off the winter ground options of hawthorn, common dogwood, black thorn, crab apple and field maple. “Here’s hawthorn”, she dangles the whip at its root. “Don’t touch the thorns” she warns, her fingers soft as flowers. “Now crab apple” I order, taking off my jacket, “Crab […]
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STUFF HAPPENS 