It was only after reading some particularly bad
poetry that this young woman was able to mourn her
parents’ respective deaths. Suddenly, she later
reported to a friend, she had hit upon the
realisation it was her who was, in fact, the ghost,
her parents now secure in the world. It was said
that she did not cry upon the realisation, but she
also did not smile. The reports vary.
Not so very long ago a community of people came
together and, after a lengthy and luxurious dinner,
after which the group found their prepared topics
of conversation too incendiary, fetid or dull to
suit the evening, decided to invent Art. During the
protracted debates that followed, according to the
comprehensive minutes of the gathering, Art’s
proportions and dispensations were agreed upon: Art
was to have no place within quotidian daily life or
public policy; it was to be devoid of both
educational merit or impetus; it was to arouse
emotion but never too strikingly; and was to be
deemed the final topic of conversation at dinner,
after its natural locutory progenitors science and
politics. Feeling pleased, the group dispersed.
(It is worth perhaps parenthetically noting that
the following morning the host of the party –
nursing a fiercely raging headache – found and read
over the proposal prior to its distribution. After
a while he discovered he disagreed with the entire
document and, throwing into the fire, rewrote it
entirely. Since this was all done in secret and
because his friends are that particular type of
people, he stills receives no credit whatsoever in
the publication of the document.)
Poem after a Line by Michael Symmons Roberts
The dove of peace is sick of being a symbol,
and sick, too, of being sick.
Besides, at the great taxonomy
it was pressured into peace by its brother the crow.
Buko was born in Ghent and grew up there and in England. Buko leads and edits an ‘anonymous writing’ service called Small Stories. Buko loves the third person. Buko is very bad at the guitar.
The Kindling 