Wave Silo

or: 'I Never Thought I'd Marry Theresa May' Another one about the UK coalition Government's 2012 rules dividing British Citizens from their loved ones overseas.  Learn more about the rules from BritCits . I couldn’t have been happier, the day of our wedding. Looking back through the photos now, it’s hard to believe it - I was so overjoyed I didn’t even notice the Home Secretary there: stood between us on the pagoda where we said our vows, or sat at our table stuffing her face with cake. Parting was hard at the airport. You told me I’d see you sooner than I thought (you overdid it. By the time you stopped telling me, you ’d got me convinced I’d be seeing you that weekend). Much harder, though, was when I got to my place on the plane, and there she was, in what should have been your seat, and her awful leopard-print heels. She follows me around now. Goes all the places you would with me. It’s really not the same. There she is at breakfast, and lunch and ...

I am sadly posting this on the day that the Western Black Rhino was reported extinct . This piece was Commended in the Somerset Short Story Competition 2013 , whose theme was 'Lost'. Copies of the resulting anthology are available for purchase from the organiser Alyson Heap - contact her at alysonheap [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk. The Last Living Unicorns Ammassalik, Greenland, 1861 Their fur-covered backs against the dense packed snow, faces flickering in the flame at the centre of the iglu , four teenage children are listening in rapt attention to their storytelling aunt. In the story she tells them, there is a woman underwater, thrashing and turning in an attempt to disentangle herself from a harpoon rope, which surrounds her waist and whose sharp end has gone into a beluga. It was fired by her son. He used to be blind. When he was blind, she mocked him for it. This is his revenge - her efforts to free herself are in vain. Like a fly on a web, her struggle is ...

Sunday saw the prize-giving for the 2013 writing competitions ( Poetry , Short Story  and Crime Novel ) at the Wells Festival of Literature . This year I had one of my poems shortlisted, and the prize-giving at the Bishop's Palace was preceded by a reading of all 27 poems that made the cut. Those writers who could make it read their own work, the rest were well represented by the Festival's own readers. I felt blessed to be included in the shortlist from more than 400 entrants - particularly once we got to the reading, and it became apparent just what a high standard we were dealing with. I think a good half of the poets included were there, and everyone did a great job of delivering their work. I had a few family and friends with me and - truth be told - at the outset, the prospect of listening to 27 poems read aloud sounded dangerously akin to an endurance test. None of us felt that way at the end. It was a joy to be there. By the time we'd heard all of them I ...

Five poems about birds from folktales. This is the fifth part of an ongoing collaboration project - earlier installments were completed with Ben Platts-Mills, Llyr Pierce , Yusuf Azak and Erica Viola. In this case, Ceridwen Brown made the bird-helmet.

Today is a day for strong daffodils. Today is a day for my shadow, fitting exactly between the yellow lines of paint on the road. Today is a day for lambs lining up (almost) neatly on a ridge on the Tor, And for a lamb in the field to headbutt its mother's udder in search of milk, Overzealous, And for her to step gently to the side. Today is a day for thatched roofs, For eager birdsong, For pigeons to make a sound with their wings like the one they make with their throats. Today is a day to drive in a BMW or a Renault or a Citroen, Or to leave a Volkswagen or a Toyota or a Land Rover parked... Today is a day to practise the piano. Today is a day to queue for a record, Or not to queue for a record. Today is a day to walk two dogs, Today is a day for a businesswoman to wear a yellow ribbon. Today is a day to buy shoes for my wedding. Today is a day to be there in time for the bus.

In all of the black woods whose charcoal branches lattice over each other against the ash-grey sky, whose charcoal trunks sink into the ash-grey ground like so many elephants' legs with no elephants attached, there is just one living thing now, and it is a bright red bird. The bird is so bright and so red that if there was a second living thing in the woods, and it was you, then the brightness and redness of it might stain your vision, leave marks on everything you look at after, like the sun that doesn't hang in the ash-grey sky. But you are not there and there is no-one to see or hear it - even so it opens its crimson beak, and from there inside where the red is even thicker, it lets out a song that fills up the wood and all the greys and blacks become more beautiful without moving or changing at all.