New Year Office Chitchat How was your Christmas?you ask and I think ofthe bloodstained rug and the silent scrapingof the spade in the gardenat midnight and the wash washwashing of my hands and the dreams,those endless dreams which hauntthe night-time and smudgetheir thumbprints on the dayto come and I replySuper, thanks. Yours?
poetry
Prayer for Uninteresting Times Send me a slow news day,a quiet, subdued day,in which nothing much happens of note,save for the passing of time,the consumption of wine,and a re-run of Murder, She Wrote. Grant me a no news day,a spare-me-your-views day,in which nothing much happens at all,except a few hours togethersome regional weather,a day we can…
My Unbearable Politeness of Being It’s the same dilemmaevery year, I find,upon meeting a personfor the first time, for how longdoes wishing thema Happy New Yearremain de rigueur? Perhaps I blow thingsout of proportionbut I tend to erron the side of caution so I’ve alwaysHappy New Year-eduntil October the Third.
This was the year that was not the year This was the year that was not the year I repaired the bathroom tap and emptied out the kitchen drawer of a lifetime’s worth of crap. This was the year that was not the yearin which I launched a new career. A West End hit eluded me as did Time Person…
Resolution Having failed to keepA new year’s resolution forPretty much ever, this year I resolve toPlay it safe. The trick is to knowYour limits. Keep it simple. Now what I resolve to do is toEschew a poetic form. Abstain fromWriting an acrostic for a whole Year. A resolution, I think,Easily done. Eminently achievable.A piece of…
I’m heading off on tour next year with a brand new solo show, in which I’ll be reading poems from my forthcoming book ‘How to Lay an Egg with a Horse Inside’. The tour starts in September. Tickets have gone on sale at most venues today. You can find out more here: https://brianbilston.com/events/ I’ll be…