GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
Latest editorial
Andrew Oldham - Playing With Crayons
Well Versed is edited by JODY PORTER
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
Playing With Crayons
Andrew Oldham
You cannot cadge my crayons.
You cannot talk about my crayons.
You cannot look at my crayons.
When I am crayoning you must leave the room.
When I hang my pictures on the fridge,
you cannot use them to make notes:
(1) Not even for phone numbers.
(2) Not even in emergencies.
If I leave the crayons on the table,
you must put them away in the correct order;
even though you do not know what that is.
Whatever I draw you have to recognise what I tell you it is.
When I shove pencils into locks to keep you from whispering to others
you will believe me when I say, ‘You are wrong’.
You will believe in my crayons.
All the colours are yours to look at but only if I say you can.
Similar stories
by Mike Jenkins
by Rosie Jackson
ANDY CROFT welcomes the publication of an anthology of recent poems published by the Morning Star, and hopes it becomes an annual event
RUTH AYLETT reviews two collections of outright political poetry