Moray Sanders
Bio
spinning a line
The Pavilion Gardens
Birdsong and SirensThe Pavilion Gardens are packed with people sprouting like multicolouredbushes undisciplined on scorched grass, or lying entwined likebindweed on rugs of oblivious bliss. A babble of sound rises from them toengulf the warm air. Birdsong ruffles the breeze and is ripped away bythe severing scream of a siren. The café, celebrating seventy years of teaand rock cakes, is sprouting people in plastic chairs. They dip and swayand clip silver spoons and forks against pristine cups and plates. The soundof the siren is long gone and everything is as it should be in the PavilionGardens on a perfect summer …Read more
Epiphany
I had an epiphany over a clove of garlic for my homework:Peel it.Chop it.Fry it.No. Stop it!. . . Rewind . . . Pause.Now look at the garlic bulb. Shaped like a domefrom the Royal Pavilion.It’s bone-coloured, paper thin skinLets inA shade of purple, delicate as a baby’s eyelid.Then I checked the homework brief and sawWhat I did:The epiphany had to be over a man-made revelation, soI dug about in my imagination, but nothing was there:Then I was aware I was staring atA bath plugDangling from its silver chain.A perfect round, black full stopWaiting to guard the drainStarkAgainst white enamelLike …Read more
Ode to My One Eyed Love (apologies to Elizabeth Barret Browning)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy washing line can stretch when reeling out so tight.To make the perfect drying space.I love thee for the whirl and swash as lacey smallsAre gently tossed, a swirl of sudsea bubbles.I love thee for those reverse revolutionsI love thee my solution to hand wash, cottons and easy care.I love thee my white square solid knightFor your untroubled, clear, one eyed steady stare.I love thee for that final tight click: turning yourself offYou wait for me. Always you wait for me.You are …Read more
A Weekend of Pleasure
A weekend of pleasure unrolling like a scroll at my feet.Not hurriedly with breathless anticipation, excitement, expectationBut lazily, languidly uncurling, showing, in part, the way the hours willSweetly pass. Then, pausing with almost agonising teasing,Before slowly revealing more of the delights to come.
The Spark
This is the Platinum Winner of the Creative Future Literary award 2013 Flash FictionI saw the whole of the universe erupt when I was seven and three quarters. I still see the electric blues and vivid greens and some colours I’d never seen before. The shapes and the sounds and the smells have seared themselves into my memory, the stars and whirls and roars and the eye watering nostril scorching stench of it and the metal taste of fear.We all saw it during the annual village party. This was held at Harold Carter’s because he had the longest garden which …Read more
