Dave Alcock
Seed Spokes blur. Tyres thrum. A boy circles his back garden on his bike. His father crouches in frozen horror. A nestling mouths a silent scream where it lies. Its eyes flame. Agony blossoms. Its wings stretch and are still at its sides. Clouds move and over-shadow the garden. A floating seed goes dark in the shade. The father turns. His son still circles. A bladed thought cuts a slice through his mind. ** This poem was first published in MacQueen’s Quinterly. ** Gaps It wasn’t the mizzle that frightened him as he picked his way down to the cove, nor the gale force winds, nor the tide-height, nor the surging sea that splashed grey to the cliffs. It was that thing in the gaps beneath his footholds, that scratched and darted between driftwood and rock, which he told himself could have been an otter, but which he knew deep down was a rat. ** This poem was first published in MacQueen’s Quinterly. ** Sixteenth He couldn’t believe his luck when he discovered that his desk was at the back directly behind Kelly Sylvester’s. They had come from different form groups, but somehow had become good friends, and all of that year he sat in his English lessons filled with happiness simply because he was able to look at her. There was so much to notice. The tight curls in her brown and blonde hair. The icy rays in her dazzling blue eyes. The freckles on her cheeks. The white teeth that he spied inside her mouth. She used to turn around and they would talk for what seemed like hours about anything and everything except the books that they were supposed to be studying. Once she was eating an apple and a bead of juice glittered brightly on her lip, swelling with the light from the windows, waiting to burst beneath the tip of her tongue. There were other things too. On one occasion, the teacher asked him what he was reading at home. He told her. “Moravia’s Erotic Tales.” He saw the aversion of the teacher’s eyes, saw them lower with a momentary shyness. He saw the colour that rushed to her cheeks and the hidden smile that gave her lips new shape. Then later, with a different teacher, for a term he studied Antony and Cleopatra. One afternoon, they concluded a reading and the question Is this love or is it lust? Was discussed. “It’s both.” The boy almost shouted. It was obvious. The two were the same. But the teacher was puzzled by the boy’s proposition, as if it were a truth that we know but forget, which sparkles briefly as the juice of an apple, a sweet brilliance that time and age will erase. ** This poem was first published in Journal of Radical Wonder. ** Edgeland Sometimes he would be there in the morning and he would look down at the lights of the pit. He would think about his father and his brother and he would wonder what it was that they were doing. Were they digging? Were they drilling? Were they drinking from their flasks of tea? Today the pit was gone, but every now and then he looked down at the valley. There were roads there now and streetlights that led to a car park and some out-of-town shops. But the memories kept coming in flakes, like the skin of his mouth after drinking boiling water, their bladed edges scraping burns on his tongue, their thinning strength breaking up between his teeth. ** This poem was first published in Journal of Radical Wonder. ** Equanimity Swaying, as the ambulance carves corners, its wheels bruising tracks on the newly gritted roads, his son far away, his heart still pounding, he imagines falling flakes. A white world. A yellow moon. * “Home.” His voice is desperate. “Please will you take me?” He won’t agree. Won’t consent. He knows it’s close. That nothing can stop it. The room is a noose. He just wants to run. * There’s an envelope on the overbed table. “You can take it. It’s signed,” he says. At the door, his son looks and pauses. Nods and smiles. Love flames in his eyes. * Before the blooded body, before the rushing of doctors, before all the alarms that blare like World War III, he speaks final words. Gasps quickly, “I’m going under.” A hand holds his arm. It is impossible to breathe. * Cul-de-sac. Bungalow. Kitchen. Morning paper delivered. Radio alarm come and gone. On a doily on the worktop, the week’s drugs neatly organised. Objects keep sparking with an immortal wish to live. ** This poem was first published in MacQueen’s Quinterly. ** Our Bread Everything seemed to stop. William’s accordion lay silent against his chest and Beatrice stopped giggling. We held the warm slices in our hands and breathed in the sweet smell of sugared dough. Even there, standing on the grate above the sewers – the smell of sugared dough. And as we put the bread in our mouths, our eyes blinded with contentment, our stomachs grew quiet, and our bodies loosened and became still. And a woman stared as she stood beside a newsstand. Her eyes were envious behind the veil of her hat. And she was unhappy not to have the things we clung to: the thrill of surviving and the taste of our bread. ** This poem was first published in Flash Fiction Festival Three (Ad Hoc Fiction). ** Dave Alcock’s short forms can be found in a range of online journals that includes Every Day Fiction, Flash Frontier, MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Journal of Radical Wonder and The Dribble Drabble Review. They have also been printed in two anthologies published by Ad Hoc Fiction. His prose works are highly distilled, often tasting like poetry, and have been nominated for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net. |