Jamie McKendrick

I spent all morning in the cafe talking to a man who’d just survived a car crash. They’d cut him out of the wreck, his legs crushed – and still not cured – his chest a map of some forsaken country no one could live in, as seen from the air, which was where he was then, or felt himself to be – looking down on his own body picked out in a ring of light though at...

The grey-green snake of the Grand Canal heels itself behind a fleet of hulls and white marble writes white marble on the face of the water under the façades in a fat oily squiggle straight from the tube. When the tyre-clad flank of the vaporetto thuds against the belly of the dock, we pilgrims watch how in her sky-blue suit the blonde conductress throws an eight around the two...

Moving away in the taxi, I could just see myself     climbing the marble steps and stepping through     the plate-glass into a lounge-cum-vestibule,

its floor inlaid with a pink star of mineral grains     and roughage – a breakfast for the after-life.     Beaded oak cladding, electrified oil-lamps,

a...

If what you hear is like a field and the height of a lark above it then the field has dwindled and the wind bells on the razor wire around the verge beyond which nothing but the pointless din of outer space gets through to you. Acoustic junk. The earth itself begins to hum with the infinitesimal tunnelling of umpteen holts and vaults and brood halls and the sky each dawn is lower than the day...

‘Be sand not oil in the world’s machine’ recommended Günter Eich. I admire Luddites, objectors, all who sabotage the cogs and gears of a lying culture.

Long exile from the hall of thane or hetman leaves the bardlings’ sweet-tooth unappeased, tuning the vocal chords to croon and charm the world in coca-cola harmony.

But who’s this under the silken billboards...