1

Dice and chalices.
Harry Styles’ outrageously good new song.

 

2

The famous neurosurgeon’s never had
his own brain scanned. ‘I don’t want to see
the shrinkage and atrophy that come with age.’

 

3

I seem to have run out of luck
(my writing life has slowed to a nervous crawl),
but I pay for my latte
with an optimistic smile
and an action-packed assortment of shrapnel.

 

4

Shrinkage. Atrophy.

The neurosurgeon doesn’t want to see
the green and the blue,
the yellow and the red,
the black and the white
of his own ancient brain.

 

5

Curious pedantries
move the whisky priest.

In a letter to Stephen Murphy, I write this:
‘Do you ever make the sign of the cross?
I sometimes cross myself in a semi-prayerful way,
like a Spanish shepherd
watching a spaceship land.’

 

6

One’s duty, in the end?

One’s duty in the end
is to get oneself dead somehow.