… excellent and appropriately disturbing for the unsettling now.
For recent publications see Writing & News
Writing & News
2022:
Departure
Shri Shri told us a story of the seeds’ coming and going. A tale was told of how some of our collected seed could be taken to the black earth left over by the fat river’s thinning. After the fat river thinned, we were to push seed into the black earth.
More writing soon!
More writing soon!
More writing soon!
2021:
The big picture is made up of many miniatures…
They say I have stolen the car…
The children are in the yard playing cats-cradle…
Chanting operatic, an urgently angled choir approach…
The geologist is waiting at the junction. The artefactist pauses, empties their pockets, glances around suspiciously.
‘What’s this?’
2020:
“This,” Perdix admitted, “is no place for one accustomed to the open field. This is no place for one befriended of the curvature of earthen beauty. This is no place. This is nowhere, this air has never before held aloft the wing. Or not, at least, the wing of feather. And no fox ever made it so deep…”
Deep down I’m a real Cuddly Club sort of a squirrel. I’m cute and of educational value. Now don’t laugh.
………. The missile rattled and bounced and clacked, as if a tumbling die.
The three of us stood contemplating a dull, oppressive silence. I took an extra two steps towards the ladder as a scratching and scuttling began. ………
Lagoon, sloshing and grunting hotly, we proceed. On occasion I get a panorama of damp and oddly hairy hills. A rolling rope-slung range is breaking the waves, vanishing again; three heads elegantly pulling; three folded and puckered ruminating heads.
Walking Sentences: disappearing and reappearing
Amble
Sentence walks.
Walking the sentence.
Waking the sense.
The sense of each step: alea iacta est – the die is cast.
An aleator is a dice player; there is always a gamble in bringing a group of people, an expectation, a hope, and a process together. Will everyone play? We lay down a bet using our time, our talent, and resources. We take the next step, and one more, and one more after that. We may refer to a map, we may hold on to a thread; what is it we are betting on?
If we are hiking to the castle called Fort Da then are we throwing our time/talent/resource into an abyss?
Fort! Away – it has gone.
There is agency in the world and this game suggests I play a part in such agency.
Da! Here – haha! It is back.
Look! Fort/Da! Haha, it disappears, it reappears.
The abyss swallows all, and yet emptiness returns a fullness. The world falls into nothingness, and yet from nothingness creativity is manifest. When I set out on a walk “the place where I was” vanishes, but from this destruction there arises a new thing: the journey. And lo! The journey not only holds the end but also therein we can see the beginning. “The place where I was” has been given back to me; it is the same, and it is radically different for now it is enriched by the journey.
2019:
Rat Birds – short story, Fictive Dream
The pigeons have spotted me. They are corkscrewing down, spinning out from the fronts of buildings. Feeling small and dizzy, I stand still and allow this flapping cloud to descend on me. The swoosh and crack of wing, the deafening rattle of their cooing chests. I half shut my eyes, hair whipping around my face in the commotion. Birds thump onto my outspread arms and some even jab their uncertain weight onto my head before scrabbling for the food.
The Goat and the Bridge – short story, Shooter
Nick Norton in “The Goat and the Bridge” weaves an offbeat fable about a goat who resists tradition to overcome a loathsome foe.
The Bicycle Theft – short story, Bird’s Thumb
Emperor Starling – short story, Eqoque Ezine
The Court is a network of wind, a breath of dancing wing. I will not fly in The Court for my song is to be epic. The song of The Court is a thread of murmur tied to a cloud.
The Exemplar – short story, Cabinet of Heed
Dust is shaken onto the tiles…
2018:
Zeno Press publish Mirror Learning, the Loosened Forms of Pleasure
I collaborate with Joey Chin on a work in her exhibition (See blog for a version of my written part of this.) Supposedly reading of a found copy of A Pilgrims Progress, Dear Farrah speculates on other possibilities.
Only One Silver Teapot – short story, The Happy Hypocrite, Tolstoyevsky
Lush research: narrative, scripts, improvisations, mycelium connections
In the Toothpaste – short story, The Cabinet of Heed
Yet These Birds Do Fly – short story, Idle Ink
The Gates – short story, Epoque Press Ezine
The Opening – short story, Shooter
Paranoid Raptures – short story, Adjacent Pineapple
2017:
Edwards – short story, Here Comes Everyone (The Brutal Issue)
How Now – short story, Fictive Dream
BEEZER: Library Interventions – essay, Artists Book Year Book
The Alpha Recital – Short story, Honest Ulsterman
Tales From the Original Land – Short story, Fictive Dream
2016:
AKA: A Genealogy of the Saddle – Book Works / Hull Freedom Festival
A joy to read, Nick Norton’s wonderful book brings a headlong, associative sensibility to the literature of landscape. I wish there were more books like it. Patrick Keiller
A Discerning Confession – Short story, Honest Ulsterman
Metalanliguistica – The Periodical #19
The Train – Poem in Anima #2
Mirror and Garden – Poem in Ink, Sweat, & Tears
Blog
Snipped
Dear Farrah – poor pilgrim – pedestrian progress. Are we in the cavemouth or are we rolling down the hill like Jack and Jill? Are we turning into the dark, holding aloft a feeble candle, and deciding to walk – right now – into the belly of a mountain? Bunyan was in jail. …
Moving Knowledge
Library Interventions: Moving Knowledge April 2018