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“... How perfect they are without your help, these limited editions. How even in winter they seem to shine when you see them, marching ahead of you, dead set on something. Their breasts toss things to porters, who bow. Their knees touch as they get down into cars. They look so interesting in their savage furs you can’t imagine their parents or their homes or whether their beds have turn-downs ...”

“... Introduction Hugo Williams sits looking somewhat cowed and apprehensive in the tea rooms of the Waldorf Hotel. His appearance, dark, formal suit and tie, silk handkerchief arranged for show in his breast pocket, makes him look old-fashioned actorish. It is almost as if he were costumed for a funeral service, and in a sense he is ...”

“... I was waiting outside my local 24hr Photoprint Services, all unsuspecting of the fate shuffling towards me on the mini-lab auto-printer. I was flicking through the usual haul of barely recognisable ‘Memories in Colour’, when I found myself face to face with something altogether nearer the truth and a wave of inexpressible sadness, or gladness, swept over me ...”

“... The lights come up, the stage is bare, the audience goes on sitting there, row upon row of gleaming teeth, set in expressions of dutiful mirth for something they have now forgotten. Someone has spilled an ice-cream cone from the balcony onto someone’s head. It trickles down over his forehead and from there down into his lap. We see the smile fade from his lips, the lips fade from his mouth, the mouth slowly wither from his teeth ...”

“... Poetry Ten, no, five seconds after coming all over the place too soon, I was lying there wondering where to put the line-breaks in. Creative Writing Trying to persuade about fifteen Creative Writing students (Poetry) to put more images into their work, I was fiddling in my pocket with an old contraceptive packet, put there at the start of the course and long since forgotten about ...”

“... The gradual disappearance of one familiar face after another, to Manchester, or Ibiza, or the ominous-sounding ‘New Zealand’, fills the screen with ghosts, who seem to exist in happier times. The reason for their absence, on holiday, or honeymoon, or merely ‘steering clear of the Filth’ in Southend or the Algarve, seems fair enough at the time and the story carries on without them ...”

“... Sex’ seems to be a word that most people understand, so there is a fair chance that the woman will understand what the man is getting at when he mentions the subject. Perhaps he is finding difficulty getting into the passage and it may be necessary to ask why. Perhaps she is dry because there is no natural lubricant for the penis, or perhaps she is very tense and unable to accept him ...”

“... It was an old book about crime detection, with pictures of murders and the places where they were committed, including street plans showing you how to get there. You were supposed to solve the murders then fill in the answers in boxes. It was like looking for the partner to a rhyme and not being able to find one. As I struggled with my deductions I kept losing my place in the narrative, or being tricked into following up false clues and obvious red herrings ...”

“... Do you drop things? Do you trip and hurl cups of tea ahead of you, going upstairs? Do your possessions have a life of their own in which they dither idiotically on your fingertips, then make a sudden leap? In a flash they find their new home in a dark corner of your room, a distant country. Your face turns red and your head swells up like a balloon as you make yourself bow down ...”

“... Days move diagonally across town, meet other days travelling in the opposite direction. Let off the leash, I was roaming the streets after dark, looking for a thread among neon petals splashing in gutters, when the screech of brakes heralded my destruction. How kind of someone, I thought, to consider de-accelerating on my behalf, no matter that the gesture came too late to save my life ...”

“... I had an idea that would have made everything all right. I outlined a case that was ‘screamingly funny’. No chance of Sunday, I’m afraid. But wait, there may be. I’ll never forget my face when I came home unexpectedly. Little imitation things were spread out on the floor. I had an idea that would have made everything all right. Supposing something bad happened and I had to be unhappy? Old people advised me to cup my hands like this ...”

“... They left me alone with the pens And I have gone over my loved one’s face In ink, for something to do. I wanted to see how she looked Telling me not to. I let my hand Trail on her cheek like a hook. Wasn’t I her pet, her little marmoset? I traced a well-worn path Back and forth between her eyes In search of crumbs. I ran the gauntlet of her tantrums ...”

“... The self-appointed guardian of our streetstands all day in the doorwayof the house opposite,glaring at everyone who passes.His job is making sure the sun never shineson his side of Raleigh Street.He holds out his hand for rainand storm clouds gather to his cause.I spoke to him onceabout some misdirected mail I’d received,saying my own mail sometimes went astrayto nearby Raleigh Mews ...”

“... Piers are stepping-stonesout of this world, a line of poetryflung out to sea on a whim,a dazzle of sea lightsglimpsed between floorboards.For 50p you can study eternitythrough a telescopeand never have to go there,only promenade to nowhere and backin an atmosphere of ice creamWe used to take the speedboat ridebetween the two piers,pulling the canvas up to our chinswhen the spray flew in our faces ...”

“... My News Now that the sun has made it over the tops of the opposite houses, flaring through the wrecks of wallflowers and marguerites, the seeds from giant purple flowers spiral up over the graves of the chrysanthemums, one-winged sycamore planes revolve on their axes down through the air. A slight breeze knocks the bell heather. Sun wobbles in the bird mirror ...”