Inspired by an evening of volunteering last week for Under One Sky, a charity which provides essentials, amongst other things, for those living on the street, I decided to write something… Hackney, mid-week, and it is a cold and wet evening there, as night beckons and winter looms, full of foreboding for those that must …
Estranged from my own heart, it was my little sister, Debs, who first introduced me to him, as his voice uttered, “If we could have hated ourselves into becoming better people, it would have worked by now.” An American, raised in the rough end of New Haven, and now living in San Francisco, Vinny Ferraro …
I long for her now. She knows who she is— the one who stepped out of snow and early dusk, on that last day of autumn, and found me— half-buried beneath my own weather, longing for a love that had always turned its face away. With her, that afternoon, the air remembered itself. My lungs …
We met through my ex-wife. He ran past our house one late Summer’s afternoon. Ken was a distinctive figure. Late 40s, fair, very tall and shirtless, with one hell of a physique, carrying a three-legged dog, aptly named Chico, on his shoulders. He stopped to talk to Klara, this unusual but formidable man, who stood …
Midday on the train, and I gaze with wonder at a baby sitting opposite me. He is possessed of a curiosity and joy, at least I think it is a boy by virtue of what he is dressed in, dark blue and green colours, not that it matters, his humanity preceding his gender. Should it …
There’s something utterly terrifying about the depressed mind, how it ravages the sense of self. Any semblance of self-worth or self-love — I mean the latter not in the narcissistic sense — crumbles, as the mind, perhaps the devil within, shames, blames, abuses and torments. It’s curious how the mind, this great gift and friend, …
The burden of care increases, as my sons’ disease takes its course. Non-ambulant and wheel chair bound, both now struggle to lift their arms. When will they be unable to feed themselves? Might this be the next milestone that me and Klara, their parents, face? Grief is ever-present, as another vital function is taken from …
Culture is not unique to humans, even though they use this notion to mark themselves out as superior to us, their ape cousins. Culture is the stamp of humanity, they proclaim, animals do not possess it – they have the unfortunate habit of forgetting that they too are animals – and there is no tribe …
It is as if I, and a few others, inhabit an alternate universe, when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, despite being in possession of the most recent reports from the IPCC and United Nations, both of which point to a devastating future should we not immediately curb and cease fossil fuel usage, proclaims …
Man is a wolf to man, according to The Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevskii’s The Brothers Karamazov. He has no inclination to be good, but is weak and rebellious. He cannot escape from the compulsion of logic. He is doomed to self-destruct through the assertion of his will. His quest for harmony is futile, unless he …