Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Zombies are giving me food for thought. They seem to be rather prevalent (although not being a great consumer of modern entertainments this seeming could be misconstrued.) Regardless of statistics, I observe a moment of soulless chomping and wonder what the creature gains from its diet? A vampire thrives on blood, a werewolf gets to be part of crazy nature, a ghost has the mixed gift of haunting. Zombies are naught but insatiable consumers. They are dispossessed of everything but that hideous, pointless appetite. I think now not of Halloween, as you might suspect, but all the commercial machinations of festival and life that do nothing to promote the real engagements, the real privileges of living. I think of being part of a different sort of devouring mass, shuffling over superficial traces, treading down careless infrastructures, recycling the senseless, putting the sharp of my tooth against flabby moral authority. If zombies were like that, they would serve a

Caterpillar likes his life. He chomps his chunky greens and ruminates. He has put a few pounds: that's contentment, a physical manifestation of his ease in the world. Literally, he is growing in importance. He has a cousin the same age as him, the same growth spurt. Cousin Caterpillar is nervous about his girth though. It makes you a bigger target for predators he says, and what are we growing for? How a metamorphic invertebrate feels is irrelevant, Caterpillar reminds himself. He spins himself a chrysalis. Cousin Caterpillar must do just the same. If one is a caterpillar, this is what must be done. It's a fine job, velvety, rich looking, it fits to perfection. But inside the pod it is so dark! He can hear his heart beating and it doesn't sound right at all. He can hear the wind rising outside and do nothing more to shelter himself. He is stuck. He closes his eyes though there's no point. After this: after this he will not know the world at all.

Did we do good..? In the night a storm has blown in, a lively sort, whips rain and wrestles tall trees. Some storms have an element of brooding: the ones you wait for are usually that way. Yesterday we made the drag to Bristol, clutching coffee. Since Friday the Academy has been busy with the people in the white training suits; they have been running up and down the stairs, packed with fears and hopes. They have been leaking sweat, and some tears. At the foot of the stairs the breaking-horse sits. At the top on the left is the thin room, perfect for queuing, where the theory questions linger and sometimes answers come even under the pressure of those secluded hopes, those self defeating fears. At the top on the right is the room with the wooden floor, the main show. Everything else is peripheral. Here, observed, you test yourself. If you were there, you know how you think you did. If your students were there, you know how you think they did. But the official stamp is

Slow wind brushes on rain-soft earth and we hear none of it. We take breakfast at noon before walking to the river. Green threads stickle the field that was bare brown three days earlier. Pheasants and moorhens throw themselves up into flight. Down by the river grows an invasive weed, I've read the seed is edible. Mr and I take each a bag, indulge in some eco-friendly vandalism. We say how fast the water goes and look, where I crossed, was it last week, now it is thigh high, it would fill your boots and shove you. Two bags full and we are weary again. At home is coffee, some sneaked chocolate. Foraged goods are dropped in the larder cupboard, for experiments at later dates. I write. The others do… stuff. Food cooks, and goes wrong. Hungry, we eat and shrug. Next time, choose stock cube or salt not both: next time, get the water to boil before fresh pasta drops and sticks. Hey-ho. Outside the moon rises, circular, silver. We mooch about, mostly c

There is a sharp-toothed wind outside my house, calling. The noise drags through me like a spoon stirring curdled milk. Hedgerow berries are turned to moulded knots. Winter's entourage is waking. It will soon be Halloween… I think this year's story is ready. Not perfected, and full of risk. Not as stomach turning as it was, perhaps the story line is then exposed as rather banal. I care not. The risk is the point. One must bring the fight to the comfort zone. On the 31st, you can read and decide. Most of my attention is taken up with finishing The Novel (this is how I think of it now, though the next one will assume the same title, and the one after that, it does not signify a solo thing, it's a misuse of the definite article for psychological purpose.) I don't like to talk about The Novel. If you are talking about writing you are not writing. Why aren't you writing? I don't like to write about myself- too much self reflection is a hobbler. When

'Are you bonkers, little one?' 'No: I'm Daddy's pumpkin!' Breakfast is served on an upturned box. One must sit sideways in a decommissioned car seat. It's not meant to be comfortable, nor complacent. It was funny but then we saw a cat. Everyone must regard the cat. The shop sells only elephants and giraffes. Not socks. If you ask for socks you will be treated as suspicious. Once upon a time, a monkey. And a sheep and cows are my cows, big cows. The monkey is paintin. Is paint, yes? Please keep up with this narrative or eyes will roll, proving your idiocy. Obedience costs one banana. Wellington boots can be put on and kicked off repeatedly. At some point they will put themselves on the correct feet. When it is time to chase a butterfly, it that time and no other. Is there any poo? Let's find a poo.

Harvest machines squeeze the lanes, drag the cut maize to store. Maize grows fast and feral, it must be chopped fast, it is the kind of crop that might make a run for it. It should be quiet then, down by the river, the field there is ploughed neat, lies waiting. Butterflies: scraps of bombazine caught on thorny stems. Brown earth, bared, corduroyed. Sky flows blue. In the hedge greens are vivid pips: the purplish sloes, the red hips. Beyond, below, the river, the bigger river has eaten up all the rain. Something slaps the water surface, unseen, unexplained. At the edge, where Dog's swim sets a Mallard drake to wing, one bright thing, turquoise shining, faceted, flies panoramic. Gorged eyes follow the field edge, the fatted twilled grass, the splay pattern seed tops. They find a spider, tucked in, patiently waiting to tuck in. It sits perfectly still for a photograph. Brown deer, paused, cashmere. White bobs of buttock flee against the hedged green: leaves